Robin's Shadow
by AndurilFLAMEofTHEwest
Summary: This story is about Shadow, Robin's elusive and mysterious twin brother. i didn't like the first chap. but I hat to put it in. please don't stop reading it until you read ch2 it is so much better than the first, pairings RaexOC, BBxT: COMPLETE
1. The Start of my destiny

Disclaimer: I don't own the Teen Titans, or anything else in this fic except my OC.

Summary: Basically this fic's main focus is on Robin's twin brother and how he interacts and fits into his life. This fic if I'm able to write it the way I want to is going to have tons of angst, action, and humor. The first chapters will be about certain parts in their lives and so on. This is my fist fic so please R&R.

The rain outside the tent was drowned out the small boy's sobs. An observer would have said it looked as if he had lost his favorite toy. But this boy had much more serious problems he had just found out that his brother had once again outshined his and left him in his shadow. That how it always went Blane would discover something he thought he was rather gifted at then when he showed it to Richard, Rich would try and just naturally be better at it.

It had started when he had tried to imitate his parent's trapeze act on a small practice set and had shown an amazing amount of promise if he kept trying. After the owner of the circus had noted that in a few years he could be part of his parents act Richard had been keen to try. As soon as he touched the bar every soul present saw the amazing talent and instinct that only a pure natural could have on their first try while he did the flips and turns. And so three short weeks later Rich became part of the act, but his brother Blane lost interest because even with the prescribed three years of practice he would never be up to the level that his parents and brother would reach during them.

The same thing happened when they had started to be tutored by the members of the circus so that they wouldn't have to go to public schools. No matter how hard Blane studied, no matter how hard he tried, Richard without even trying would get far better grades. Once again leaving him in the shadows. It was like that in every aspect of their lives. Everyone loved Richard's smile, looks, and amazingly optimistic attitude. While at the same time looking down their noses at his brother's sad face, pessimistic outlook on life, and no one except Richard ever gave him encouraging smiles or kind words of comfort. Not even his parents could tell if he were angry, upset, sad, or even when he was emotionally torn inside. To them he always seemed content with his life.

The night their parents died Richard was torn into pieces, but Blane decided that all he cared about was that his best friend hadn't been killed as well. He felt he would have no reason to live if his brother, the only one who would even give him the time of day, had died as well. So that night he promised himself that he would never let Richard have this kind of pain again. Then that man, Bruce Wayne, came and took them to live with him. Wayne only took him in Because Richard refused to go without him.

"Richard, what were you thinking when you accepted coming to this stuck-up prissy-boy's house!" exclaimed Blane soon after surviving another dinner with Wayne.

"Dude, calm down I know he doesn't seem to have a very deep personality but he is letting us live here." Richard calmly stated. Geez, dealing with a recently gone goth twin brother could be excruciatingly painful at times. Why the heck did he go goth anyway.

"Bro, the man hates me. I mean come on, can't you tell he's only letting me stay because you wouldn't if he kicked me out. Don't tell me you're oblivious to how he treats me. The only words that Wayne has directed at me were, 'there's your room' and a gruff 'morning' in the three weeks we've been here!" Blane was starting to get annoyed with all of this because it was even worse than the damn circus. At least his parents tried to talk to him out of becoming a reclusive goth. "I'm going to finish exploring this damn prison, later."

Richard was dumbfounded, Blane could exaggerate just about anything. "Fine you do that I'm going to sleep." But as he lay there he thought, 'Could he be telling the truth? Nah, he's still upset about mom and dad.' With that he fell sound asleep.

Little did Richard know, that his brother would resent him always being the best at everything but never hate him. Shortly after that they discovered the Batcave and became Robin and Shadow. Batman and Robin were always confused about his choice of the name Shadow, but never questioned him about it.

"Well since you have both shown that you want to become hero's you need to realize that this is not an easy road." Batman stated.

'Is there such thing as an easy road? If it weren't for the fact that this might help me find something that I'm better that Rich at I would have walked away the minute he started to discourage us.' Thought Blane as the cowled man blabbed on and on about the dangers and spelled out what they would find required of them. 'Does he seriously think we haven't thought about all of this, except maybe the love part, but I seriously don't think we'll have to worry about that. '

"Now the next thing on the list is your code names. Think carefully and tell me who you want to become." Batman said as if challenging them to say "Batboy".

"Robin." Richard had been planning on seeking Batman out for months and already new what title he wanted to uphold. The nickname his father had given him his first time on a trapeze. He could easily remember the day he was given that name.

----------------Flashback-------------------- 

Blane had just completed an amazing routine for some one who had just started learning how to be an acrobat. Richard was quite impressed at how well he was doing.

"Bro, that is amazing can I have a shot at it?" Richard asked. He would love to get into the family act right alongside his brother.

"Sure thing man, just be careful." Blane warned.

As he had climbed onto the bars his parents and some of the other people in the tent had turned to watch and see if he had the necessary talent. As he went through the routine he had seen Blane struggling with just moments before he was surprised at hoe easily it was. When he dismounted everyone was staring at him in awe. Apparently it was the Hardest they had given Blane to do yet and Richard had just breezed through it. Everyone was congratulating him and then his parents walked up.

"Richard that was amazing you're a natural sweetheart." Came his mom's loving voice

"Son you could easily join the act within a month if you are willing to practice. I swear you looked just like a robin flying in the spring. You belong in the air!" his dad had said with pride in his voice as he raised his son onto his shoulders.

Just before he was swept off into the small celebration the performers were holding at having found someone so young to join them Richard looked over the small crowd at his brother easily slipping into the shadows. 'Funny he almost looks like he could just disappear in those shadows.' He had thought.

**-----------End Flash Back-------------**

Batman decided that the name was acceptable. He then turned expectantly to Blane who had a completely blank look on his face.

"Shadow." He said with absolutely no emotion at all in his voice. He then turned and walked over to the workbench and began work on his new identity.

The newly christened "Robin" and Batman looked at each other with some surprise in their voice. After that night no one new what shadow thought or felt unless he expressly told them. He even surpassed Batman when it came to mysterious. He had finally found what he was best at skulking as a shadow. And inventing the greatest cloaking technology the world had ever known.

Hey everyone thank you for reading this first chap. But please don't judge the story by it the second is much better. It is when Shadow talks to Robin about the creation of Red X. it also starts the actual story thanks a bunch.


	2. The Shadow

Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Titans or anything in this fic except my OC Shadow.

Summary: This fic is about Robin's twin brother shadow and his interactions with the Titans at least the first chapters are if I get enough reviews I have a story planned for it. It will eventually be a RobxRae but not until I reach about the time of Haunted. For a short while there will be RobxStar.

**Last Chapter Recap:**

**"**What will your names be?"

"Robin."

"Shadow"

_'It has been almost two years since I left my brother to his own devices. A little over a year, since I sent Raven to find him with instructions to keep silent about who informed her of him. And it has been one year to the day that I met the grass stain known as Garfield Logan in the plains of Africa. Funny, I had no idea the future hero would grow on me so much. It's just something about how he acts around me that makes me think of him as the little brother I always wanted. _

_Now Raven is an interesting character. In many respects she is very much like me. On the outside cold, bored, and uncaring, but underneath her outer shell she's a bundle of confused emotions that only teenage girls can possess. I met her shortly after taking my leave of Gotham and my uncaring foster-father. Unlike my brother, I didn't allow him to adopt me, not that my real parents were any better. All they ever thought about was Richard this and Richard that. Tssech, it makes me sick how no one except my brother and two other teenagers always think that I'm worthless. Why will I always live in my brother's shadow. Oh, there's that giant 'T' better put my mind at the task at hand. Ever since I made those vows that I would do anything to make sure that the ones I cared about would be safe, happy, and content I had developed an acute empathy ability with those people. Even over long distances, I could feel any major amounts of distress or emotional turmoil they were experiencing. It could be quite annoying at times, such as when Beastboy feels like Cyborg cheated on a game, but at other times it was quite useful. Now was one of the useful times._

_Earlier that day I had been racing along when I suddenly had to stop to wrestle the overwhelming sense of guilt and betrayal, mixed in with a drowning sense of failure when I realized that something was seriously wrong in Titan's Tower. So I immediately changed my course and sped towards the Tower. Now after eight hours of straight driving, I'm finally able to see the island with the obnoxiously shaped tower. Better put my head in the game and leave my thoughts to a better time.'_

A jet-black bike swerved expertly in and out of traffic as it made its way towards Titan's Tower. The bike itself looked like something out of a science-fiction movie, and yet no one seemed at all disturbed when it shot past them at the dangerously high speeds it's owner pushed it to. It was as if it was completely invisible to the naked eye.

When it finally approached the tower the bike seemed to morph open till it looked like a bike that had had the body coverings split open as a figure dressed completely in black jumped silently out. Anyone looking at him would have thought he looked like some phantom out of a horror movie. In fact, he was exactly the opposite of what the generalized view of what heroes were supposed to look like. The suit he wore was pitch-black allowing him to easily blend into any shadow. The part of the suit that clung to his lithe frame was completely black without any device or insignia to identify who he was, as most super-heroes are wont to do. His long cape was tattered and torn which only added to his ability to disappear at will. The only part that wasn't black was the white eyes of his mask, which only added to the terrifying effect his costume had on people. He made no sound at all while he quickly ran towards the entrance to the tower.

Despite all of the miraculously advanced defense and security systems that protected the tower from any intruders the masked shadow quickly infiltrated the tower and with knowing steps made his way to the evidence room where he knew the person he was searching for would be. With ridiculous ease he slipped past every security precaution Cyborg had invented to stop all intruders as he silently stalked through the quiet, dark, and deserted halls of Titan's Tower. To the observer it would seem he knew the twists and turns of this maze of metal as if he had lived here for a long time. But that observer would be wrong. He had never lived here. In fact, he had never actually set foot inside this fortress of justice. Yet, he knew the ways because he had helped design this very model of the tower.

With practiced ease he quietly walked in so as not to disturb the leader of the team that lived here. The notorious Robin, former apprentice of Batman and one of the world's greatest detectives, the same Robin who had just lost his team's trust while trying to catch the elusive Slade, the only one to ever outsmart him. He was standing there, staring at the very source of all this commotion that had wreaked havoc on his team mentally and emotionally. A suit, not much unlike the one the shadowy figure next to him wore, except this one did have other colors mixed in with the black. A gray form of a skull was plastered onto the mask, along with gray boots and gloves with a tattered appearance that added to the stealth capabilities. The most striking difference in the suits though were the length of the capes, the one Robin was staring at only coming down to the knees, while the others went down to the figure's ankles, and the red X's that were on both sides of the hand, a large one on the chest and a slightly smaller one on the mask almost like a scar covering one eye.

Finally the mysterious figure decided to comfortingly put his hand on the Boy wonder's shoulder, instantly jerking Robin out of his thoughts as he whirled around to face the intruder in a practiced attack stance. Robin relaxed when he saw who had interrupted his brooding.

"Why are you here Shadow! Don't you think I got enough grief from my friends about this matter?" He said in a venomous tone.

"_I came because I felt something was extremely wrong and to see what had caused my twin brother to feel so much anger and regret."_ Shadow simply stated in a gravelly, raspy voice, obviously disguised.

"It all started when that madman Slade first came into the picture and I wanted to stop him from causing anyone harm." Robin said while his eyes trailed back towards the costume on the wall. "I wanted to catch him before something went horribly wrong. So, I created an alter ego that could get closer to him than Robin ever could, but it backfired. Slade was always one step ahead of me the whole time yet again. Then my friends found out that I had gone behind their backs By not telling them about my plan and that it was because I didn't trust them to still fight as hard as they could even though they knew it was me behind the mask. None of them had been trained to mask their fighting styles to not actually harm the person they're fighting while still looking like they don't care if he gets hurt."

'_So that's why I can feel so much anger and betrayal coming from Raven and Gar. He didn't trust them the way they felt they had earned. It's beginning to make sense now.'_ Shadow thought_. "In case you're wondering about my take on this I think you need to give your team mates more credit. They feel they have earned your trust and have a right to know what your plans are. I personally agree with them." _Shadow stated calmly as Robin weighed his words. _"You place very little trust in the people who care the most about you. If you feel they need to work on something, then tell them, and help them work through their shortcomings. That is the role a leader has to play Rich, you have to help your team not leave it in the dark. If you tell them to improve on something and how to do it, they will work. That's how families work and you need to take in the fact that most of these kids you work with see this team as their family. They may not realize that yet, but they do. Learn to trust them and they will be more than willing to follow your orders and advice."_

"You may be right, but what if you're wrong? What if they will never trust me again?" Robin questioned doubt knowing at his insides. _'Why did Starfire have to say that Slade and I are similar? What right does she have to make that kind of observation? Why does she think she know how my mind works?'_ Robin questioned himself about a comment made by the alien earlier that evening:

"But Robin you and Slade are similar," she had said with a sad tone in her voice. "He did not trust you just as you did not trust us."

'_He's not telling me all that's bugging him there's some other factor playing into this. He won't willingly tell me though, I'll have to weasel it out of him.' _Shadow thought as he listened to Robin skeptically. He decided to change the subject he knew his brother would be more than willing to talk about. _"What can this _oddly familiar _suit do."_ He said putting emphasis on the words "oddly" and "familiar" to remind Robin that he doesn't enjoy anyone trying to imitate the hard work he had put into his own suit.

"Heh heh, sorry about. Look I know you take pride inbeing a separate breed of hero, but I knew that if there was anyone capable of getting close to Slade it was you, and since you insist on working alone I decided that I would need to find a replacement. So, I took what I remembered about your suit and did my best to imitate it." Robin chuckled nervously as he tried to read his younger brother's response. _'Why does he have to be so damn hard to read? I mean, he could give **Raven** lessons on just staring emotionlessly at you while plotting a horrible death in your near future.'_ Robin audibly gulped, here was the moment of truth.

"_Fine, but you still haven't told me how you made it." _Shadow said in a cryptic tone. He knew Robin would break down and tell him if he caught him off guard.

"Oh, right it's really just something I threw together in a few weeks. Just a never-ending arsenal of thief tricks and weaponry, that, along with a short-range teleportation engine and high-end cloaking technology with the ability to slip into almost any facility in the world undetected. The only setback, the only energy source capable of energizing that kind of technology was a xinothium engine." Robin stated with embarrassment evident in his voice.

While his body didn't show any expression at all, Shadow's mind was screaming bloody-murder. _'Just how smart is he? A short-range teleportation engine? How did he manage that? Does he always have to prove that he is better than me at everything?' _Though while staring at the schematics and blueprints, he gestured towards Robin asking, _"You have to give yourself credit, this is impressive. In fact, it's far more advanced than my suit. I know for a fact the Army would do almost anything to not only find a use for xinothium, but with all of this stealth tech you could easily retire and live happily for the rest of your life." _ Even Robin could tell there was a small hint of sarcasm in the retiring part. Shadow knew his brother well enough to know that he would never dream of retiring from the hero business, at least, not yet.

"Don't even joke man it's no where near as good as yours." Robin exclaimed with disbelief threaded into his voice.

"_No, it's beyond my tech. The problem is you don't enjoy using the kind of Strategy required for this kind of suit. So you can't use it properly. I tried for months to invent a teleportation engine but always failed. You are by far the smarter between the two of us." _Shadow stated emotionlessly in his raspy voice. Robin involuntarily shivered. It was always way creepy the way he talked. Even before he had disguised it, people would be creept out of his monotone statements, even Batman.

'_Wait a minute, he's probing me for what's really bothering me. I might as well tell him, he always finds out in the end."_ Robin wanted to slap himself for not seeing it before then. "All right, I see what you're getting at now. And I'll tell you since you're the person I trust most in this world. I'm upset about something Starfire told me earlier tonight."

'_So, it's something the pretty alien girl told him. I should have known, he always did hate it when a pretty girl said something he didn't like about him.'_ Shadow imperceptibly smirked, _"What did she say? What did she observe about this incident that makes you feel like trash?"_

"S-she said t-that I was like S-slade." Robin finally managed to choke out. He wasn't used to revealing his emotional problems. And he hated crying, but Shadow was probably the only person to see this side of him since the night their parents died.

"_I know you think highly of this girl, but I'm going to be blunt and strait-forward." _ Shadow said slowly and calmly. He had to break this slowly to Robin because he would resist this view at first. _"She is a naïve little girl who sees the world through rose-colored glasses. You have to realize that her observations are those of a narrow-minded girl. She hasn't seen what we have, and she has no idea what we've been through so she can't judge us. You need to understand this Rich, She can't tell the differences between you and Slade because she doesn't know your thoughts or reasons. To her there are no gray areas, but I'm glad that you finally realize that everything isn't black and white. You're finally beginning to see the world in the way I have since we were seven. You have to draw your own lines and stick to them. Others cant choose for you."_

Robin slowly pondered the way his brother was saying, he finally realized that he truly was seeing the world the way Shadow had always tried to show him. There were gray areas and you had to make your own choices and learn from your mistakes.

After a silent while Robin finally spoke. "I think I will take your advice on the trust part and just keep trying and hope my friends can forgive me." Hope was beginning to surface in his voice again.

Shadow smiled, knowing that he had once again helped one of the people he most cared for see the light he would never witness. _"Don't even ask if I'm gonna stay here for a while cause you know I won't."_

"I know, I guess I'll see ya later?" The Boy Wonder asked hoping that this wouldn't be a one time thing. He hadn't realized just how much he missed his brother until just now.

"_Don't worry kid, I'll always be here when you most need me." _With that said Shadow simply disappeared into the shadows he was so at home in thinking, _'now to try and convince Raven and BB to try and see Rich's side in all of this. It's gonna be one of those nights. Well no to Rae's room.' _

Hey everyone. Hope you enjoy this chapter. The next chapter will have a deep and hopefully interesting talk between Rae and Shadow, who by the way I've decided will secretly harbor feeling for the sorceress. Please review and tell me what you think. Thanks!


	3. Attatchment?

Disclaimer: same as always the only thing I own is Shadow and everything else I use in my fics I don't own.

Summary: This chapter is going to focus on Shadow's conversation and relationship with Raven. I've decided to have a one-sided ShadowxRaven. Raven will always see him as the 'brother' she can rely on to understand and care. If Shadow were to have his way she would never find out about his feelings. If I word this conversation right, it will focus on how Raven learns to forgive and understand Robin's reasons for the Red X incident. In the show X is one of my fav characters so whenever he comes into the story I will put major emphasis on how it affects everyone. Now, on with the story.

_'Now, to face the challenge of making Raven understand Robin's reasoning behind what he did. Despite what his teammates may think he did have good reasons for doing what he did. Even though I told him their point of view he didn't have time to include them and train them if he was going to make his ruse convincing to Slade. He had to begin stealing those chips as soon as possible afterwards of Slade would have been to worried about a trick.' _Shadow was deep in thought as he quickly scaled the sides of the tower on his way to the roof. He had to be cautious, he couldn't risk a security camera catching him for fear of Robin finding out that he had met any other Titans. _'I can't have the Titans I do know, find out that I'm friends with any of the others. I just don't want those relationships ruined by differing opinions of what I'm like. For instance, if Richard or Raven found out the activities I do when I'm around Garfield, it would ruin their opinions of how serious and thought-provoking I can be.'_

The black form was weaving in and out of the security cameras ranges in a pattern so complex, Slade would have had difficulty maneuvering through the tangled web and complex maze that Cyborg thought didn't exist. _'To be quite honest with myself I don't exactly understand any of the friendships I have forged with these people. Robin, well more like an older brother that I'll always try, without success, to outdo at anything I can think of. Beastboy, well he's more like the little brother I never even new I wanted until I actually met him. He just seems to bring out the playful side I thought had died the day I discovered that Rich would always outdo me. Raven… what is it about Raven that I feel I can relate to. I know we're both dark, mysterious, and even creepy at times, but our pasts are both incredibly different. When I first met her, she told me about the prophecy made at her birth, being the daughter of the most powerful demon in hell, and about the difficulties of having to control her emotions. And yet, even she says that I'm darker, creepier, and more withdrawn than her. She keeps telling me that to be allowed to feel emotions is a gift, but I disagree with her. While she had a bad life that no one could have changed, that was pretty much set in stone from the beginning, and no amount of her parents choices after her birth could have made her any different, I feel I had the harder more unforgiving life. When I actually took the time to ponder this, I realized that I am more emotionless than her because I chose to be this way because I had no hope. Plenty of people in my past could have made growing up easier on me, my parents could hace spent just a portion of their time trying to reach out and encourage me, but they didn't, they put all of their energy into making Robin the person he is today, kind, caring, compassionate, unshakeable morals, and a deep sense of justice. Bruce, could have put forth some effort into training me, teaching me, or even just talking to me, but he didn't, he left me to fend for myself, I taught myself how to be a hero, and now he has the utter nerve to say that he taught me better than what I am when he is being looked down upon by his friends the "Just-us League". Even the other superheroes could have given me advice but they would just look at me with contempt and mutter, "Are we sure he's Robin twin?" Raven can at least hope for a semblance of happiness in her future, I have no hope that I will be treated differently in the future. So, I gave up years ago.'_

As Shadow crept over the edge of the roof, he heard the familiar "Azerath, Metrion, Zinthos" ringing through the air like a soft and distant melody, half remembered in a memory from the past. Silently, without even her noticed his shrouded aura, he sat down beside her, imitating her meditation practices.

**_"Azerath metrion Zinthos, Azerath Metrion Zinthos." _**His raspy voice slipped out, knowing that he didn't have all night to wait for her to finish and talk to him. He still had one more person to visit after he finished his chat with her.

Raven let out a startled gasp when the rough coarse voice shattered the symphony hers wrote. She spun her heard around and let out an audible sigh of relief when she recognized who was interrupting her preciously needed meditation. Had it been anyone else she would have attacked them for making her feel so surprised and scared, but this was Shadow after all and he understood her reasons for acting the way she did. _'He wouldn't have disturbed me if it wasn't urgent and if he had enough time to do so. I wish I knew his reasons for acting the way he does. He's allowed to show emotion but he refuses to, it's all so confusing. I would give up almost everything to not be the way I am but he has a choice to act and feel the way he does but he reverts to being an emotionless shell. I'll admit I envy his control, with my highly advanced empathic abilities never once have I sensed an emotion coming from him. It's as if he's a robot, a soulless machine without any purpose in life. And yet, if I describe an emotion that I'm confused with to him, he knows exactly what it is and how to work through it. The one time I did ask him why he would choose to be this way, he said that he had weighed the options and this was the only reasonable life for him. What could have happened in his life to make him choose this?'_

"What." She said in an emotionless monotone yet there was annoyance laced in with it.

**_"I came to see your side on the events of today. You know, The "_Red X'_ thing."_** He said the last part to avoid her trademark "Nothing's wrong, and everything's fine" routine.

Raven visibly winced, knowing that he already knew the events from earlier, and that she had no way of dodging his questions tonight. "All you need to know is that My leader didn't trust me and has now lost my trust in him." Short quick and to the point, she didn't want to argue with him about it tonight.

"**_Really, did you happen to ask what his side of the story was? Did you try to understand his reasons? Or did you just cling to the fact that you're smarter than him and therefore you are right?"_** he stated with anger and challenge written in with those statements, for once showing emotion in his voice. Raven was startled. She had never considered that it might have been her own pride that made today so trying. She hadn't stopped to consider or even listen for that matter, Robin's reasoning behind his actions. She should have, she was living proof that there were gray areas in between good and evil, being the daughter of a demon and all. Guilt coursed through her, she knew better and Shadow was disappointed for her not understanding that.

"**_Have you ever considered just how trying this Slade problem might be on Robin? I have, I knew what his life was like back in Gotham as the Bat's apprentice. He had always succeeded no matter how much responsibility was placed on him. But here, he's failing for the first time in his life, and he has so much more riding on him this time. For once, he doesn't have someone making the decisions for him and he's having to rely on people who aren't as…committed…to this cause as he is. He doesn't have the support beams he's always had and he as trouble trusting people to be his new ones. You need to understand that." _**The full weight of Shadow's words slowly settled on her as she sat unmoving on the rooftop. She knew he was right. Slade was the hardest thing any of them had had to face yet and it was destroying most of their states of mind.

"**_Raven…" _**his voice was soft and forgiving. **_"Everyone one has to deal with pride at some point in their lives, even you. Now that you've realized it, you can fix it before the problem becomes worse. I know you've sensed the guilt and remorse coming from Robin because it's causing your conscience to fall to pieces. But you have realized it early enough that you can salvage your friendship with Robin, and maybe at the same time become one of his pillars of support. He needs those now more than ever. So please try."_**

"I will," raven said with a final note of understanding in her voice. "But how do you know so much about Robin? I mean, You seem to know more than I do and I live with him." She was rather suspicious, how did he know about a past Robin had never revealed to his team? Did he actually know Robin? Was he sticking up for a friend he knows better than most?

It wasn't till months later that she would realize just how close to the truth she was at that moment in time because he silenced those questions with a simple statement. **_"I spy with my little eye kid, I spy."_** With that he disappeared beyond even her enhanced senses.

'_Why does he always call me "kid" whenever he says goodbye. And just how old is he?_ Raven silenced those thoughts and stored them away for later recollection. She knew what she had to do the next day and she was gonna need as much rest as she could get to try and apologize to Robin and talk about the reasons he did what he did. Teleporting herself straight into bed she sighed, "Tomorrows gonna be a long day." And with that she fell straight to sleep.

Behind a jet-black mask a smile came to a face. 'Two down, one to go.'

Beastboy's room was a total disaster area. Piles of…stuff littered the floor of the vegetarian's private sanctum. While walking through this train wreck Shadow visibly cringed, he could have sworn he saw BB's socks slithering along the ground. _'T still don't get how someone so optimistic and carefree could have idolized me so much. Am I just someone he knows will keep his deepest secrets hidden away from the world? Or am I the "cool" big brother he always needed?'_ Shadow was jerked out of his thoughts by Gar grumbling about something in his dream. _'I feel sorry for the person who has to wake him up after having his "beauty sleep" interrupted.' _Shadow smirked underneath his mask after recalling what Gar referred his sleeping cycle to. _'He might want to just go to sleep and never wake up if he wants to be considered beautiful.'_

"Gar…" 

No answer.

"Gaarr…" 

Yet again, no answer.

"**_Garfield Logan, you wake up right now or I will never, I repeat, _NEVER, _play another video game with you in your entire pathetic life." _**

"DUDE, please nononononoNO! You have to play with me, you have to, I couldn't go on in life without being able to see if I've improved against you or not!" BB was going into hysterics right now, and if you didn't know what was going on he looked like his girlfriend was dumping him.

"**_Fine I'll still play with you, on a few conditions…"_** Shadow was smiling, he wouldn't have to try and convince Gar about anything. This discussion was over before it even started. Who knew Beastboy had become so dependant on video games?

"I'LL DO ANYTHING, ANYTHING!" he was creating a pond of tears in his room now.

'_Good, maybe the tears can succeed where nothing else has. Getting rid of that tofu reek.' **"Alright, here are the ground rules: First, forgive Robin about the incident with X. Second, clean up this room and keep it clean for a month. And last but not least, no fights about tofu and meat with Cyborg for one month." **_Shadow couldn't help but smile evilly about that last one.

"First two, phfft, no problem, but no fighting with Cy, bro that's cruel and unusual punishment. You mean I have to sit there and watch eat _ME _without saying a word!" Gar felt that this was going beyond far. "Nuh-uh, no way am I living through that. You're not the boss of me." He then folded his arms across his chest and put on a stubborn facade.

"_**Fine then, I guess I'll have to give my limited edition,"** 'Hook,' **"one out of a hundred," **'Line,' **"copy of mega-monkeys 3 director's cut to him then. I'll just go slip it under his door." **'and Sinker.'_

"Wait, WAIT! I'll do it, I'LL DO IT! Just please give me that game."

'_Knew it.' **"All right, it's yours, as long as you keep those promises and tell everyone that it was pushed under your door tonight by a fan. Understood. I don't have time to play tonight, but don't worry I'll play for two hours next visit."**_ Nothing was better to get BB to agree to any deal than bribing him with a game, especially when that game is only one of a hundred made.

Beastboy was just nodding dumbly as he was staring at the holy grail of all games as it was set gently(in his yes with all reverence) into his unworthy hands.

Shadow quickly left the boy he would never admit was like a younger brother to him to his "beauty sleep". As he left the tower he felt the emotions of his loved ones calm and become like unto an undisturbed lake with perfectly still and calm waters. He sighed with relief, he felt as if he had done something that made his existence worthwhile. The discovery that there may be a reason for him to live made him feel a sense of peace he had never experienced. That was it, he would not rest as long as those three had trials and needed advice on how to deal with them. He now had a purpose, to protect, care for, and defend anyone he cared about. With that he strode back to his bike, leapt inside and closed the casing of it around him, then he silently raced off into the east towards the flaming sunrise.

How was that one? Like it? Hate it? I'll even receive flames just as long as I know people are reading and getting some reaction to my work. Thank you. The next chapter is going to cover the situation after The Apprentice episodes.

I know that Shadow appears to be condescending and proud in the partswith Raven. Later on the Titans will learn more about him during his captivity inside Cadmus, but that wont be until after the End. I'm only going to cover certain incidents that deal with the ones he has a connection to. And those _four,_ I'm not going to reveal the fourth one yet, will find out about the others knowing Shadow by Speedy(who I think is somewhat of a blabbermouth). Once again please read and review. It will get to the action/adventure part in the near future, around the time when someone steals the Red X suit.


	4. Sorry to Disappoint

Disclaimer: Standard, I only own Shadow, nothing else.

Thanks for the reviews that I have received. To answer one question, the pairings haven't come into the story yet. The Titans are just a bunch of friends who live together at this point. You should be warned, I will not focus on romantic relationships. The major pairing will be RobxStar until Haunted. After that the focus will turn to a growing RobxRae that will actually progress to the 'couple' stage at some point. I will have BbxTerra, and one sided ShadowxRaven after a while.

This chapter will cover a much larger portion of the time line than the last two but nowhere near as much of the first. The first portion will be kind of like pages in a history book covering the highlights of the problems he steps in on. After that it will begin with the "X" episode. Hope you enjoy.

Anduril.

_'So now the emotional turmoil of the past few days comes to a head.' _Thought Shadow as he silently followed the now leaderless Titans into what had to be assumed as Slade's new lair. _'You would think that someone who thinks so highly of his mind and creativity as Slade does would resent giving in to the old lair in a warehouse generalization. I mean even the **Joker **has used warehouses, and he's as, for lack of a better word, different as they come.'_ Shadow was then jolted out of his thoughts as he made a pipe rattle and Cyborg swung around to shine a light where he had just been. _'Better concentrate on this 'mission'. Where the heck is Rich? I mean finally breaking into Slade's lair and he isn't even here? I wonder why the emotions I receiving from him are so…defeated. I'm not even getting a joking one out of Gar, that's a new experience. He and Rae feel so grim. I wish these stupid 'empathy' bonds I accidentally made with them made telepathy mixed in with them. What has happened while I was involved in that stupid tournament of 'villains', and why did they choose me for that but leave that stupid egg-head at the Hive home, I'm a frikkin her- Holy- when did this happen?'_ The group had stopped and were staring off into the only part of the room with light in it.

There standing in front of Slade was the one and only Boy Wonder only he was dressed in a mini-me version of Slade's armor. The only difference in the mask he now wore and the one he always had on was the edges at each end turned upward, giving him an angry and much darker look. His head hanging down in submission. _'Whoa, I did not see this one coming. I am so gonna hafta kick his butt if he's gone over to the dark-side.'_

Shadow never had to do that because at that moment Star fired a bolt directly at Slade

"Robin attack!" Robin then looked over at his friends and saw two familiar masked eyes narrowing in the shadows above the others. In those blank white eyes he saw the challenge. Shadow was daring him, Robin, the Boy Wonder, the hero who could do no wrong to raise a hand against friends. Robin just stood there not sure of what to do, he knew he could fight his friends to protect them but not Shadow, because he would never accept anyone, let alone his brother, giving up and going against their morals to protect him.

"Guys get out of here, you don't know what-" He was cut off by Beastboy and the others.

"Dude, we know." Beastboy stated a fact unknown to Shadow with a seriousness that no one knew he had.

"And we don't care." Cyborg, in his best friend and big brother like way, was telling Robin he didn't have to do this.

"But Robin doesn't have a choice in the matter." Slade said with such a tone of finality most of them were taken aback. At that same instant Slade pressed the button on the control detonator attached to his wrist.

Shadow heard cries of pain beneath him, and upon closer inspection the four teens beneath him were almost writhing on the floor in excruciating misery. Masked eyes widened as the pieces of the puzzle came into place. Robin was being blackmailed!

Just as Shadow was about to make his presence known by launching himself at a completely unsuspecting Slade, Starfire mumbled something that apparently Robin heard. She seemed to inspire something inside her leader that not even his brother could, because at that instant Robin made a decision and charged towards the laser that was near a wall on the far right. After making contact with that another screen on the far wall came to life and showed small probes attached to Robin's red blood cells. With that a pained Robin walked with determination towards a stunned Slade.

"New deal Slade I lose my friends you lose your apprentice." Robin had a tone of victory weaving in, and not leaving, his voice.

'_Dang, does he know how good it feels to hear him talk like that again?'_

Slade, fairly quivering with rage, threw the remote down to the ground and the pain the Titans were feeling subsided. As soon as Robin felt he could breath again a metal covered boot flew towards him. Slade expecting to be able to easily beat this lesson mercilessly into his wayward apprentice never expected to have Robin react by catching his shin and holding him there so that his friends had an open target. Slade smirked his friends didn't have the reaction time to attack him before he forced Robin to release him. Then it would end with Slade's victory once again. Just before he yanked his foot away and began to humiliate the teens yet again something razor sharp embedded into his neck. Distracting him long enough for the other Titans to assault him eventually leading to their victory and him fleeing, FLEEING!

The Teen Titans had finally defeated their arch nemesis, they felt like having a party, Raven was even the one who suggested it!

While the five teens celebrated their undeniably well deserved and explosive breakfast palooza, said villain was yanking out a simple, jet black, and four-rayed ninja star. "It seems there is a player in this chess game that I have overlooked. I'll have to put them into consideration. Maybe Robin thinks he has found a secret weapon, I'll have to put a closer watch on their comings and goings." His said in his calm yet venomous voice. Yes this new player would have to watch out.

And yet, Slade never placed a name with this new player. He never seemed to make another appearance. Not even with his new apprentice, Terra, acting as a spy inside the teens own home discovered anything about Shadow. At least, not that he ever learned about. While there was nothing on the mainframe about his existence, Shadow never stopped coming and making his short visits. To those that he came to talk to he always said and did exactly what they needed even when it wasn't what they wanted.

He slowly started to create a bond with the newest member of the Titan family shortly after her return from being recruited by Slade. Their bond never reached the level of the other's because she was never fully honest with him and slowly he stopped talking to her as she became more and more Slade's puppet. He never found out about her connection with Slade until the time the others did. But she could never bring herself to report her new friends existence to Slade. Terra found that he was nice to just have around to talk to and never told Slade about him because he wasn't a Titan, just a friend.

But then she betrayed them and the only reason Beastboy even left Terra's room was because of Shadow. While Shadow didn't know how to help him heal the heart ach he was able to supply him with encouraging words and some one to talk with about Terra. Over time Garfield was able to develop a way to deal with the pain, he would just think about the good times and hope there would be more.

During the final moments in the battle with Terra and Slade in cavern Terra's will was so completely defeated by Slade's that she was going to fight them until she looked behind Robin and saw two narrowed slits that belonged to a mask and in those moments she had what was thought to be her last discussion with Shadow. Ringing through her mind was the raspy, grating voice that belonged to him, and him alone.

'_**Just what do you think you're about to do? Do you think that I will allow you to kill the boy you would never stop describing to me? The boy you loved…still love? Slade does not have control of you. You can still break free."**_

'_He's to strong, I can't break free from his control!'_

'_**Try Harder.'**_

'_I am, I don't have the mental strength to do it!'_

'_**Then I'll cut you free.'**_

At that instant Terra and Slade, who couldn't stop the mental intrusion, turned towards Shadow just in time to see him hurl a _simple, jet black, four-rayed, ninja star_ towards the back of Slade's mask. Before Slade could react it tore through the nueral connections that allowed him to control Terra.

Terra took it from there regaining control she attacked Slade mercilessly, finally defeating the sociopath by hurling him into the river of lava running beneath them. But her powers caused the volcano to become active and threaten to destroy the city. But Terra in a final act stopped the eruption, but it cost her, her life.

After the Titans themselves came to leave the plaque and make the promise to find a way to reverse the process, Shadow came to try and reach out mentally to Terra. He was met with limited success the mind of the young girl was to drained of energy to think coherent thoughts, but she was alive and Shadow promised to work to find a way to give her the energy to break free.

Shadow was feeling good about himself, a very rare occurrence throughout his life. He seemed to finally find his position and place in life. His "family" as he now thought of the three Titan's he had any contact with were happy with their lives. Robin, without Slade around, had finally found a little time to focus on Starfire, which in Shadow's hidden eyes was an accident waiting to happen. Still he knew that he couldn't try to influence his brother in a choice like this, Robin was a smart guy and he knew that he would figure out how off balance that relationship would be. Now Raven, she was finally coming out of her shell and interacting with her teammates more and more often. It made him proud to know that all of his quiet encouraging was finally doing the trick. And Gar, he was in a league all his own, he was impressing everyone with how well he took the Terra incident and parts of it were just spending time secretly playing video games with Shadow. Yes, Shadow was finally feeling uplifted and content with his new life, no one was berating his methods or telling him how to run his life and he was having no problem keeping the promises to his friends.

Shadow leaned back against the trunk of the tree he was sitting in and relaxed for the first time in years. As he was lying there, he looked down at the Titans who were watching the fireworks that were going off in the distance. Robin, flirting incessantly with the pretty alien who was so into what ever he was telling her that the fireworks were long forgotten in her mind. Now, if that alien were to ever meet Shadow, there would be dire consequences, but for now they were on good terms because she was oblivious to his existence and therefore, never tried to be his friend, which was fine with him. Cyborg, another member who had no knowledge of the figure sitting silently in the tree above him was absent-mindedly chewing on a piece of grass, which looked like it was a habit from his long buried past. Soon, he and Shadow would meet and discuss fast cars, high end computer systems, and how they work, but not yet. Beastboy was sound asleep curled-up as a dog that was having a belly rub done secretly by Raven. Raven would absolutely die if die knew that anyone was watching her beautiful hands scratch the green dogs stomach. _'Wait a flippin second, did I just say beautiful about Raven? Holy crap I did, but it's hard not to think she's beautiful. In fact, me and her do make sense, but neither of us would do anything about it. Both because of our painful pasts and dismal futures. Oh, well I can still love her even if I can't tell her.'_ Just then the finale of the firework display went off and everyone stopped their little lazy activities and watched the brilliant display of light, color and sheer joy. With the loud booms and bright showers of fire dazzling the eyes it was hard for anyone to feel depressed. _"Yes, thought Shadow the future is looking far less disturbing at the moment.'_

After the Titans had gone home Shadow was still sitting in that tree trying to decide whether or not he wanted to spend the night there, when he was jerked back to his senses by a gruff voice beneath him.

"And he I was hoping that when you left Gotham all those years ago you would have had the decency to die and leave your brother in peace." The Dark Knight clearly was disappointed by the fact that Shadow still drew breath.

"**_Sorry To disappoint, I didn't know that you actually didn't think I deserved life." _**Shadow was mentally cursing fate. Just when he thought that he had found his niche in the world an authority figure came to rip it away. **_"I knew that life was becoming to good to be true, what laws or unwritten rules did I break this time? Did I make one to many jokes about 'supes' gray hairs again? Or wait is it you that I insulted this time? Oh please lecture me and get it over with."_** Venom and sarcasm dripped through his voice so thickly that it was obvious even with his disguised voice.

"Actually you're under arrest for participating in an illegal high speed motorcycle race in Arizona about a month ago. If you will come quietly you won't have it so hard." Batman said with the tone in his voice practically begging Shadow to put up a fight.

"**_What, did the big bad 'Just Us League' run out of baddies to catch so they come after little cry baby Shadow." _**Then with a speed Batman had never seen a normal human capable of Shadow hurled smoke bombs in and around the tree. Just as he was expecting, the rest of the league came out of their hiding places to try and surround him. _'Perfect.'_

As soon as the smoke cleared the league was stunned to see J'onn(the Martian Manhunter) unconscious on the ground. Shadow was no-where in sight, he wasn't dumb enough to try and take on all of these guys at once. Slowly, the martian began to stir and stood up groggily.

"J'onn what happened?" asked Wonder Woman in a worried tone she had had no idea that the teen was capable of taking down a member of the league.

"It was strange, when I went to enter his mind I was met by mental defenses that are not natural to a human. Not even you Batman, have defenses this strong and impervious. I felt they were only slightly amplified by his suit and that most of the shadows that encircle his mind are generated by him." J'onn was speaking in a tone that worried the other members of the league. This boy they had always feared would reveal a much darker and sinister side was strong enough to block even a strong telepath's attacks. They soon alerted all of the adult superhero community to be careful and to try and capture Shadow if necessary.

In Titan's Tower the Titans were watching a movie when the screen was suddenly taken over by Speedy's worried face.

"What's wrong Speed?" Robin asked in a worried tone. Speedy was acting as if the Green Arrow had died.

"Dude, Robin have you heard from Shadow in the past three days?"

"Didn't I tell you not to mention my brother in front of the other Titans? He doesn't want people to know that he exists man." Robin yelled in an annoyed tone. Speedy was gonna die for that. If Rob had turned around he would have seen the stunned look on two of the Titan's faces.

"Well the whole world is about to know he exists, because the league is trying to track him down and arrest him! And I'm trying to warn him."

"What does the dude look like?" Cyborg innocently asked.

Surprisingly it was Beastboy who answered his question. "He's about Robin's height and he dresses completely in black." Robin and Speedy looked at him in disbelief.

"Picture an all-black Red X and you have him Cy." Raven's monotone put in…

While the Titans were speaking to Speedy, a figure was slipping through the tower towards the evidence room. Then it broke into the vault containing Red X and slipped back out as quickly as it had come.

What do you think. Please review. It may be a few days before my next review but I had to get this up as soon as possible. You have no idea how hard it is for me to bash Batman, he's my favorite superhero but it has to be done to get this story the way I want it to be.


	5. Return of X?

Disclaimer: my standard one I only own Shadow no one else.

Let the story begin.

Robin and Speedy were staring in disbelief at BB and Raven. They had just simply and perfectly described what Shadow looked like.

"How do you two know what he looks like?" asked Robin with suspicion edging his voice. "Did you see him one of the times he came to the Tower to talk to me?"

"No Boy Blunder, I had no idea that you knew who he is. Considering we are talking about the same person, I know him because he sneaks into the tower to talk to me and be a pillar of support when I need it. Oh, and did I mention that I wouldn't have found out about the titans if he hadn't told me you needed members and that I could get a home here?" Raven said in a tone that startled her teammates. It wasn't monotone, it had tenderness and concern leaking into it. "And what do you mean the Justice League is trying to capture him? What did he ever do to them?"

"Dude, my stories the same as Raven. Shadow comes and just spends time with me when I most need someone who I can trust to keep what I tell him silent. He's also the one who brought me to Jump City." Beast Boy said with a touch of maturity and wisdom that most had never noticed before the incident with Terra. They all realized that that was the time he was mentioning, the whole Terra incident, it had touched him far deeper than any of the others. "He's the really cool big brother that I never had. You know, the one that acts all tough around others but shows you a caring, tender, and playful side. He always liked to mess with me."

Robin was just stunned, but also anger was beginning to seep into the far corners of his mind. Who gave Shadow the right to meddle in the affairs of his team! Speedy thankfully noticed that look slowly creeping onto his friend's face and intervened.

"Whoa don't you start going off on some helpless rant man. Shadow had every right seeing how you probably wouldn't have two of your members if it weren't for him. And before any of you get mad about him not mentioning knowing anyone else on the team, I need to tell you something he told me when he came and said goodbye to me after running away from the Bat almost three years ago. He said that everyone needs their own secret keeper and shoulder to cry on, and most want one that they can keep to themselves. So right now lets worry about warning hi-"

Speedy never finished the sentence, because just then his face was pushed to the bottom left corner of the screen. The alarm was going off because someone was attempting a burglary of a shipment full of high-tech equipment down by the docks.

"We'll talk later Speed, Titan's GO!" Robin quickly fell into his leadership role and the others, no matter how confusing this was for them, followed his lead and focused on the mission.

Once they entered the warehouse they quickly saw a shrouded figure moving quickly towards a particular section of the storage sheds. With amazing ease he was running through every security system throughout the complex. Fortunately for the Titans, the devices he was using made it easy for them to follow without alerting the police. As they entered a large storage shed, Robin to the time to yell 'freeze' alerting the thief of their presence and causing him to turn around. What they saw was a figure out of their past, one that had caused many hard trust issues that had taken forever to work through.

Slightly illuminated by a pale shaft of moonlight from the glass section of the roof, was Red X. After the initial shock, Robin and the others immediately jumped into the offense. But every attack just seemed to roll past this guy and not even faze him in the slightest. He seemed to have some new tricks up his sleeve then when Robin was in the suit. Beast Boy came charging towards him as a rhino, but X just stood his ground and placed a palm against the ground. Suddenly the ground had red beams of light travel along it causing the concrete to split open into a fissure and Beast Boy had to quickly call off his charge. Cyborg and Raven came charging down a path between stacks of boxes towards him, sonic cannon and soul self charging together for the assault. X just calmly pointed his palm towards them and a beam of red energy shot out and caught the two sending the energy from their attack into each other.

"**_Did your wires get crossed?"_** X taunted in his distorted voice.

After he said that a starbolt blasted into his chest sending him flying backwards smashing into some crates. Red X raised his head and saw the Tamerainian warrior floating above him. "You will come quietly, and you will go to jail." She said in her butchered use of the English language.

**_"Sorry, but I don't do the whole jail thing."_** As he said that he shot another X shaped energy blast towards her. Starfire, being caught off guard, was caught head on as the X turned into a giant metal one and pinned her to the wall.

"**_The only crime here is that you and I haven't gone on a date yet." _**Once, again X knew just how to taunt the people he was near and get under their skin. Starfire with an enraged expression on her face blasted him with beams that shot out of her flaming eyes. X was caught off guard by this one and flew across the room where Robin immediately pounced on him.

"Who are you and how did you get that suit." Robin yelled as he launched a flurry of attacks. Spinning kicks, punches and birdarangs didn't even touch X as he continued his game of taunting.

"**_If I wanted you to know who I was, why would I be wearing a mask? But this is a nice suit kid, but I must say it looks much better on me." _**X quickly mad his escape after he and Robin traded a few more blows, only stopping to grab some sort of scanner and place it in his belt. **_"Later Kids."_**

Robin, who was on the ground, got up and started moodily brushing the dust off of his uniform when he noticed Starfire poking him again and again with her fingers.

"Uuh…Star, what are you doing?" Robin asked in a confused voice.

"I am checking to see if you are a hologram, because the last time we fought the X of Red it was you and the you we thought was you was a hologram." Star continued to poke Robin. Finally, she was convinced and announced to the other Titans that he wasn't one.

Beast Boy, not entirely convinced that this wasn't a fake Robin said in a suspicious voice, "But he might still be a robot. Check him for batteries." As soon as BB said this Cyborg pulled a latex examination glove out of nowhere and snapped it on.

AS the Titans slowly walked towards him Robin put up his hands defensively saying, "Guys, I swear it wasn't me." Robin sighed depressively, "Red X was a mistake. A mistake I don't plan on making again." With that the Titans began the trip home.

Once they got back to the tower the Titans immediately began to try and figure out what had been going on. Robin went into the evidence room and sure enough the suit and been stolen but by whom he had no idea. Nothing came up on the security cameras.

"So, someone was smart enough to steal the suit, but dumb enough to take it for a joy ride." Raven quipped in her famous sarcasm.

"Now all we need to do is find out what he stole and maybe we can figure out his plan." Cyborg, being the tech genius he was wanted to know what the scanner was for.

"I already know what he stole. He stole a scanner that tracks down xinothium, the suits energy source." Robin said in a defeated voice. All the Titans, except Beast Boy gasped when he said xinothium.

"Aw man, I hate it when I don't know what everyone is talking about." Beast Boy said with obvious jealousy at everyone else's knowledge.

"XINOTHIUM! You powered that suit with xinothium? What were you thinking." Cyborg began to rant on in an outraged voice. "That's the most unstable compound in the universe man!"

"Like I said, Red X was a mistake." Robin said in his new 'I'm such a failure' voice.

"Alright, X isn't the only one with a scanner. I'll just upload the xinothium's energy signature into our communicators and then we'll know where he's going to stike next." Cyborg, taking control of the tech part of the situation, said in his let's get going voice.

"I don't need a scanner, I'll find it the same way I did last time."

With that, Robin walked out of the tower and into the night.

After having a little talk with professor chang Robin called the other Titans and told them to meet him at a high security, private office building where he had learned X would strike next. Throughout the mission after he had found out where the ore was, Robin's teammates started to disappear one after the other. First, Cyborg didn't show up at the meeting place and his communicator was being jammed. Then once they entered the building, the others slowly began to be picked off. Robin was positive that X was behind it. Finally, as he turned a corner he saw X about to break into a huge vault. X turned when he noticed Robin.

"What are you planning?" Robin asked, the anger and contempt clearly heard in his voice.

"**_I'm only looking out for number one kid, where are your friends?"_** X clearly enjoyed egging this kid on. He was wound up so tight it didn't take much to get under his skin.

"What have you done with them!" Robin was getting angry now. When would this guy take something seriously?

"_**Lighten up kid, I didn't do anything to your precious friends. I haven't even seen them at all so far." **_

Just then, Starfire screamed. Robin turned his head towards the sound and while he was distracted X pulled some X shaped ninja stars out of his belt.

"**_So kid, you coming out to play? I mean, after all, they are your toys." _**X taunted, throwing the X's at the computer that controlled the door behind him. As soon as the doors started to open X did a graceful back-flip through them dodging trough the lasers that would trigger the alarm without even once looking where he was headed.

Robin was at first stunned at what had just happened. This guy was unbelievable, did he have no morals? But he followed after him just as easily dodging the same lasers. As soon as he got to the end of that corridor he looked opened the door he was positive X had gone through. But then X appeared behind him and pushed him onto the floor of the room causing a laser cannon to start shooting at him no matter where he turned it was following him.

Quickly racing towards the only option left to him Robin headed straight for the vault containing the xinothium. But X got there first and closed the dorr on his face with the laser headed straight for him.

As X packed a case full of xinothium, the door to the room was blasted off by the cannon. He turned and saw Robin standing there, with the cannon in his arms and a determined look in his eyes.

Robin whipped out his bo staff and began swinging it violently at X. "What are you planning?"

X backed away and said, **_"Not everyone likes to play the big villain kid." _**

The X's on the back of his hands began to glow and X shaped blades grew out of them. Then he and robin began swinging at each other. To Robin's surprise X was much better at hand-to-hand than he had anticipated. Although not as skilled or strong as Robin, X was just a hair faster and had just as much knowledge as Robin did. The two went on fighting like this for a few minutes when all of a sudden someone blasted them both from behind sending them both into a state of unconsciousness.

When X woke up he noticed that he was trapped in some sort of energy cage that Robin had put around him. "You started this mess and now you're gonna help finish it." Robin had that kind of grim determination thing and you could tell that he didn't want to play anymore games.

"**_Sorry kid, but not all of us like to play the big hero."_** X wasn't going to let himself fall for this one. He knew that as soon as this was done Robin would try and put him in jail.

"Fine, but you're staying right here until I save my friends, then you're going to jail when I get back." Robin then turned on his heel and started heading towards professor Chang's astronomy tower thing.

After he left X looked and saw the controls for the bars surrounding him within reach of his gadgets. Looks like he was gonna be home free after all.

Robin was fighting valiantly to try and save his friends but it looked like he wasn't going to be able to alone Chang was aiming his cannon directly at Starfire and was ready to pull the trigger if Robin made any attempt to fight back. It was beginning to look hopeless. All of a sudden some red X's flew into the control system for the giant cannon and sent the machine out of control. X jumped down and helped Robin pound the henchmen nearest them into the ground.

"I thought you didn't like playing the hero?" Robin said, and for some reason unknown to him he began to smile as he and X seemed to perfectly mesh into a tag team fighting style. _'Why does this fighting side by side with this guy feel like we were meant to be a team? I know I've fought alongside this kind of style before I just can't place where or when that was.' _Robin didn't have much time to ponder on this though because X was making his way towards Chang while Robin was fighting off dozens of rubber-suited freaks to rescue his friends.

As soon as the battle was over, Robin, with the Titans behind him, stood in front of X. "You know I have to take you in now right?" Robin said, challenge ringing in his voice.

"**_I doubt you can, besides I have enough xinothium to pwer the suit for a good long time." _**X in his bragging tone of voice held up a tube full of the ore.

"Won't do you much good without this." Robin triumphantly held up the suit's belt.

"**_Impressive, but how 'bout we make a trade?" _**X then faster than any of them could react jumped over them and landed behind Raven, grabbing her and putting one of his blades against her throat. **_"Her, for the belt."_**

The Titans were stunned, they had just seen this guy help save them and play the part of a hero perfectly and now he had Raven held hostage! So, Robin did the only thing he could do, he made the trade, but what surprised the others, especially Raven was the fact that he didn't argue or hesitate. He just walked up and handed X the belt.

Just before he released her however, X leaned over and whispered something into Raven's ear, something that caused her to blush then put on a face of total relief. As she calmly walked away, X teleported and the Titans wouldn't hear from him for a few weeks.

After getting back to the tower the Titans were completely beat. Most went straight up to bed, others namely Raven went in to get a mug of tea to help calm her nerves that had just been shot. While sitting there she couldn't help but think about X's parting words in her ear. **_'See I told you he had a thing for you. And you know I wouldn't hurt you right? I just need that belt so I can lay low for while cause I have a few…items of business to take care of. Later, Rae.'_**

Raven smiled to herself, not only was one of her best friends alright, but he had been right about a certain Boy Wonder having some kind of feelings for her. Yes, the future always did seem brighter after a conversation with Shadow, and even though he really isn't Shadow at the moment, she always could count on him to help her out.

Meanwhile, Robin was pacing in his room trying to figure out what X had told Raven before slipping away again. He just couldn't figure out what could make Raven so calm after having a knife to her throat. That wasn't a 'Raven' thing to do, ever! _'Why did X go after Raven when everyone suspects that I have a thing for Starfire? Any way, they are kinda right about that. But still, why her, why Raven? Does he think that I have feelings for Raven? Do I have feelings for her? Nah couldn't be that, but then why did I not even think about the consequences of giving him the belt? Why was it, that at that moment, nothing mattered but getting Rae away from that lunatic? Well, I guess he isn't a lunatic just a little off on what his priorities are. Any way, I'll have to keep an eye out for reasons as to why I would have done anything to make sure Raven was all right.'_ With those thoughts racing through his head, Robin finally fell asleep so that he could be ready for the next day's hero junk. He had to give an interview for the newspaper.

'_I wonder what kind of new junk I can make the xinothium do the next time? Half the stuff I did today were things Robin and I had never dreamed of when we were talking about his tech one night. It seems that because of xinothium's highly unstable molecular structure it can become anything I can think of, a nearly indestructible metal, maybe blasts of sheer energy, maybe even red kryptonite radiation, there we go now we're talking. I can't wait to see what xinothium does to big time superheroes who never gave it much thought before. But now it's just a game of waiting for them to find me, I can't even hide forever. They'll find me. but I'm gonna be ready and waiting. I just hope I can count on the others to be as forgiving as Raven was. Man, I just seem to think about her more and more, but so does Robin, and he always gets what I want because he always seems to want it too. Maybe one day I'll be better than him at something, but I know he'll always get the girl.' _Red X sighed, he could just never win in the end, could he. But at least he got the belt back.

So what did ya think? I know that the whole Shadow becoming X thing was kinda obvious but it was supposed to be. That way, Robin beats himself up for not figuring it out. I'm trying to decide about whether he's gonna stay X but take back his role as comforter for the Titans, or if he will go back to being Shadow. If you have an opinion on the matter please let me know. Thanks again


	6. Shadowing?

Disclaimer: I do not own the teen titans just my OC Blane/Shadow.

Thanks for all the reviews, hope you guys enjoy this next chapter.

'_What am I going to do? I have the Justice League after me and I can't show myself as Shadow or else the league will jump out at me, but I can't just abandon the Titans. And I can't talk to them unless I appear to them as Shadow. Why did fate have to make me her favorite plaything?' _Red X was sitting in the same tree that he had watched the firework display from just weeks before with the Titans, although they weren't aware he was there. Yes, fate did seem to enjoy watching him try and just find his place in life. He was glad he had a minute to just rest, from the day the league had first come after him he had been constantly on the run at least up until he had helped Robin save the Titans and gotten the belt back. He had been on the move for a few days after that because he wanted to make sure Robin hadn't gone all Slade style obsessive on catching the elusive Red X. When it had become apparent that Robin was willing to let him get away he had decided to go find a place he could catch some rest. Man, how he wished he had his bike, but she would just make it to easy for him to be identified as the renegade superhero Shadow. Right now his bike was leading the league on a wild goose chase.

Yes his bike was very much alive. One of his more amazing inventions, his motorcycle, Shadewing as she liked to be called, was a vehicle the likes of which the world had never seen. One night he had been working on it when he fell into some sort of trance while working on the computer systems, When he had awakened he knew exactly how to succeed in making the most advanced AI system yet known to man. After he installed the new software into the computers hard drive, he realized just how cruel fate had been again when _she _had woken up. Shadewing or Shade for short, learned at an incredible pace but had an almost big sister kind of personality when it came to Blane. She was constantly asking if he had eaten or if he had had enough rest, but the most annoying aspect of he personality was just that, she had one. She constantly would change the shades of black or anything else on her paint job and was incredibly vain. She didn't have the conventional street bike look, in basic design she was remarkably similar to the R cycle but that's where the similarities ended. Instead of riding on top of her, the outer casing would split open on invisible seems to allow you to mostly ride inside of her, that was a safety precaution because of the speeds they had attained during their illegal racing exploits. She had a stealth mode that would actually fit the whole Red X thief business if he decided to go with that. She aften said she was the most advanced vehicle on the planet and not even Cy's precious T car could match her with her sci-fi movie look and hidden gadgets.

He knew that Shade wouldn't be caught, but he actually found himself missing her because he had to remind himself that she wasn't human every once in a while because she was his only companion that always stayed by his side. He knew that he had to do something, because the league would soon notice that he wasn't in his bike. He couldn't help but laugh at his mental image of Superman's face when he looks inside Shade and sees he isn't there. He was also wondering how xinothium would affect a kryptonian and how he could use it against him. This suit was amazing, no matter how wild his imagination went with his ideas on how to manipulate the xinothium, it hadn't failed yet. It was doing everything he could think of, he was even beginning to think that he could open a dimensional rift with enough of the stuff, it would have to be a last resort thing though because it would drain the suit and if it failed he wouldn't have enough time to refill the xinothium tanks before Superman or Flash went after him.

That was not a fight he was looking forward to. No one had ever single-handedly fought the Justice League and won yet, and he was just a teenager, not a super villain! At least this suit offered more protection than his Shadow one. _'Crap! I forgot that I'm going to leave that suit with Rich until it's safe for me to wear again. Better go and get that done before dawn and I get spotted.'_ With that, X quickly made his way across the city towards the tower.

Raven was on the rooftop trying to decide about whether she should tell Robin about Shadow becoming X, or just let it go. She knew that it would be better if he didn't know that it was his brother who had brought back the bad memories he associated with that suit, but everyone could tell he was worried sick about his brother, they hadn't had any word from him for weeks and Robin, with his obsessive detective side was busy conjuring up stories about what might have happened to him. Raven had to hand it to Shadow though, he knew how to just disappear, not even Batman really had any leads on his true whereabouts.

She smiled earlier that evening Speedy had sent them a transmission saying that someone called Shadewing had lead the league on a three week goose chase around the country. Raven would have to thank this 'Shadewing' if she ever met her. Apparently something about Shadewing was a huge joke to Robin and Speedy, but they had left the others in the dark saying that they would see how funny it was when they met her. She was just staring at the calm waters in the bay surrounding the tower now. Trying to decipher what had been so funny to the two boys.

Just then as she looked at the water she saw a figure start breaking into the tower. She scowled, it shouldn't be this easy for anyone to get in, apparently Cyborg's security system needed to be updated. Silently she phased trough the roof and into the common room where the would-be burglar soon made his appearance. Just as she was about to make him realize the big mistake he had made by breaking into her home she gasped, and with a small squeal of delight, tackled the startled figure of Red X.

"So you did figure out who I am." X said in a completely normal sounding voice. She realized that he must have turned off the voice distorter. She was a little stunned at hearing his real voice for the first time but quickly shrugged it off by being her sarcastic self.

"Well you weren't exactly hiding it were you? If I didn't know you stole your _Brother's_ suit I would have said you had just painted it a different color and changed your name." She stressed the word brother to remind him that he ahd kept that little fact all to himself without letting her know about it.

X winced, he knew what she was mad about, but he had had every reason in the world. He decided to let her in on one of them. "Would you have trusted me if you knew about that? Would you have let me so far into your life if you had thought that I might turn around and report it all to him? And before you ask me, no Robin really didn't know I was talking to any of his teammates. If he had he wouldn't have acted so surprised when he found out." He stated these facts quickly before she had the chance to argue about it.

"Fine, but how did you know he was surprised, suspicion fringing her voice. How had he known about that, heck how did he always know when she needed to talk about something that only he could know?

"For that, all I really know is that when he's feeling an emotion strongly I feel it. The same goes for you and Beast Boy, sometimes I swear those bonds are bordering on one way telepathy." X was telling the truth here, he really didn't know what was going on with those bond things.

"You mean that what I feel you feel?" raven sounded a little worried. "But most bonds work both ways, why can't I tell how you're feeling?"

"Because I hide them, I haven't openly expressed emotion for nine years." X this whole time Raven realized had been talking in monotones laced with bits of emotion that were harder to catch than even hers were.

"Oh, that's why I can never tell what you're feeling, I always wondered if you were an azerathian monk or something." Raven told in a joking manner, which surprised even her, she never did anything like this, what was wrong with her?

"Nice joke Rae, BB would have died on the spot from the shock of it. But I have to hurry, take this to Robin and please tell him what I an doing, I have the strangest feeling that I'm going to be his favorite villain in the morning." While he said that he handed Raven his Shadow suit and teleported back to wherever he was staying. Raven just stood there shocked, that new suit, instead of making him easier to track and see had made him even more mysterious. She then headed straight to Robin's room to give him the good news, and his brother's suit.

When she got to his door, she hesitantly knocked on. Almost immediately Robin answered the door, he had apparently gotten up early to call Speedy and see if Green Arrow had heard anything new about Shadow from Batman. Raven, to her credit, got over being stunned by how quickly the door was answered and walked right past Robin into his room signaling for him to close the door. Robin, although puzzled closed the door and went to ask her what she needed.

"Ok Raven what do you want?" Robin winced, he hadn't meant to sound so annoyed, even though he was in a hurry to find out about Shadow it was obvious that Raven had something important to tell him.

"Don't worry Robin I understand that you're in a hurry, but trust me this is good news." Raven then pulled out Shadow's uniform from where she had been hiding it from view. "Don't worry Boy Blunder he isn't dead. He came by about an hour ago to give you this, but I was already up and told him I'd do it for him. He was in a real hurry and didn't have mush time so he didn't come and wake you up." Raven could tell that her news was giving the Boy Wonder mixed feelings about it. It was obvious that he was glad to hear something about him but worried about him leaving his suit with Robin. Wouldn't he want it for the likely chance that he was found.

"Once again, don't worry Robin, he'll be fine without this suit." Raven then paused and carefully chose her next words. "He's using a suit better outfitted for defending himself. He…uh… this is kinda hard to say, b-but he's the one who stole the Red X suit." She got really quite and timid towards the "Red X" part, but Robin heard every word.

"You mean he stole the suit and then threatened to slit your throat if I didn't give him back the belt?" Robin was almost to the boiling point about that last part but wasn't sure why it bothered him so much since he knew that his brother wouldn't have hurt Raven.

"Robin you just as well as I do that he wasn't going to hurt me he just needed the belt back and didn't want to reveal himself in front of Cyborg and Star. Besides weren't you saying that you were planning on giving him the suit before you found out it had been stolen? I think he stole it just to help protect you from being punished for helping him. All we have to do is act like we're trying to get the suit back, then the league won't have any proof that we sympathize with him and not them. He did it to protect you." Raven's voice got really quiet towards the end of her small speech. But she could barely hide the fact that she was pleased with the fact that Robin was mad at Shadow for threatening her, even if it was all pretend.

"I know I don't know what came over me just then. But I am glad to hear that he's fine for now. Lets go and see if Speedy knows anything new and have some breakfast. They headed downstairs and talked to Speedy, he didn't know anything new but was glad to hear that Shadow was in control of the X suit. Just a little while after the teens had eaten lunch Cyborg came charging up from the Garage, where he had headed to buff up his 'baby' the T car, yelling some incoherent thing about possessed girl motorcycles and hid behind an already annoyed Raven(Beast Boy had just pulled a ridiculous prank involving one of her cloaks and _yellow_ hair dye).

As Cyborg blubbered on about some haunted motorcycle that was trying to ask him if he had any synthetic French motor oil, Robin started laughing about nothing in particular, or so the Titans thought. Cyborg stopped crying and shared confused looks with the other Titans. They slowly followed the echoes from their leader's laughter.

When they got down to the garage they saw what had to be the strangest sight they had yet witnessed in their young lives as superheroes(Beast Boy is convinced that he wont ever see anything stranger for the rest of his life). Robin was pouring some of the motor oil Cyborg had mentioned into the engine of probably the coolest looking bike they had ever laid eyes on, but that wasn't the part that was weird. No, the weird part was he was _chatting _with the bike and it was talking back!

All of a sudden the bike seemed to notice the other teens and turned it's attention towards them. "Why hello there, you must be the other Titans, I'm sorry if I starled you Cyborg, I didn't know Robin had decided to let you find out about me on your own. I had assumed he would have told you about me." Beast Boy and Cyborg's jaws dropped, this bike was talking to them, and it had a voice that they swore had to be human.

"Why, you must be Beast Boy, Shadow told me all about you, you're the one who can change into animals and eats only tofu right?" Beast Boy just nodded dumbstruck. How the heck did this bike know Shadow?

"Guys, I'd like to introduce you to Shadewing, Shadow's bike, and the most advanced AI on the planet." Robin was enjoying this, it used to be one of his and Shadow's favorite hobbies, introducing Shade to unsuspecting victims. "But you can just call her Shade for short."

Raven was the next to speak. She went up to the bike and ran her hand along the casing. "It's very nice to meet you Shade, I'm very thankful for all you did to help Shadow hide from the Justice League."

"Well now you must be Raven, I can see why Shadow always spoke so highly of you. You know just how to react in an awkward situation and you're very considerate. Most people don't address me like a person, with the exception of Shadow, Robin, and Speedy." You could see that Shade was enjoying having Raven around, you could hear it to as the engine purred beneath her touch.

That seemed to wake up the other Titans and they were soon crowding around the bike. They learned more about Robin's brother from his bike than thy ever had from him, which had the bike been just any other bike that would have just bee pathetic.

X watched the Titans talking to Shade, he groaned in his distorted voice. His bike couldn't keep a secret if her life depended on it. Soon The Titans would know way more about him than he was comfortable with. Oh well, he would have to deal with that later, at least she didn't know he was X. So the only ones who would know about it were the birds.

X decided that the time had come for Red X to make another appearance on the whole crime scene. Partially because he wanted a good stockpile of xinothium, and he needed money for food. But there was part of him that couldn't deny that he not only wanted to see the Titans again but he was also enjoying being a bad guy. It had a unique sense of danger and adventure that being a superhero had never held for him. So he decided that he would secretly get the xinothium, but trip a wire at the bank while he was there. After all, the sensors couldn't catch him unless he wanted them to.

While in the vault of the bank he found the alarm trip and well, tripped it. While he was gathering his dough, he heard the Titans sneaking up on the vault, but what they would later learn was he only stole money that was already his, or more accurately Blane Grayson's.

The Titans were whispering to the manger of the bank to try and figure out why the thief was only targeting this one vault. "Well all we know is that the money in the vault isn't even the banks and the owner of said vault goes by the name of Blane Grayson, Does that name mean anything to you?" the manager asked trying to see if anyone knew anything about the owner of the vault the thief was in.

"No it doesn't." came Robin's smooth reply. Even though the name meant a lot to him he couldn't let the others know about Shadow's secret identity. "All right Titans, begin to move in maybe we can catch him off guard."

Just as they began to head towards the vault the door swung open to reveal Red X himself. He was carrying only a small portion of the cash inside there and seemed to have done this more to get the Titans attention than for need of money.

"**_Well, well, well, if it isn't my favorite superheroes the Teen Titans. Listen I only took a small amount from the vault, just enough to get food. Any way, what I'm doing is only going to effect one person who clearly has more than he needs. What do ya say? Do I get a free getaway? Or do we have to do this the hard way?"_** Cyborg, Beast Boy, and Starfire were sitting there expecting Robin to be the first one to attack, but to their complete surprise, Raven was the one to attack first. She pushed him through a wall phasing through after him. The others, with the unknown exception of Robin, didn't want to be X right now figuring Raven must have known the guy who owned the vault. They decided to wait until Raven needed help.

In the alley on the other side of the wall Raven had her friend pinned to the wall anger and rage threatening to consume her. "What the heck are you doing? I know this is only one guys vault but why?" Tears were beginning to form in her eyes. She truly was confused as to why he was stealing anything but the xinothium.

"**_Rae listen to me, that's my vault, if you want you can ask Robin about it later if you don't believe me but that is my money. I just didn't want to make a normal withdrawal because Batman keeps tabs on my cash flow and would immediately know that I was still in the City."_** X was doing his best to convince Raven, luckily for him she wanted to hear him say something like that and was willing to listen.

"Ok, but I will check with Robin after this and if what you said wasn't true I will come after you." Raven was beginning to regain her composure. And just in time to, because at that moment the other Titans rounded the corner and X used a new trick to disrupt her soul self. Thus, the fighting began with the Titans and X perfectly matched, but two of the Titans and X were holding back just enough to make sure no one got hurt.

As the fight began to sway towards the Titans victory, the oh so familiar voice of the 'beloved' Superman rang out, "Good work Titans you just cornered the renegade hero known as Shadow. We'll take it from here." The Titans looked around and saw the seven members of the league surrounding them testing them to see who they would side with.

"**_Now really supes, do you honestly think that you can take me? I mean after all, your little martian mind-reading trick doesn't work on me. You've lost the only advantage you ever had one me." _**The superheroes surrounding him stared at him in shocked silence. X was willing to fight the Justice League?

"So, my overall invulnerability, Lantern's ring, Hawk Girl's mace, J'onn's shape-shifting abilities, Wonder Woman's powers, Flash's speed, and your old mentor's mind don't count for anything?" Superman didn't like the sound of this kids voice, or the obvious smirk beneath the mask.

**_"Not with this suit they don't…"_**

Please Read and review I hope you enjoy this one. The next chapter's contents are kinda obvious if you actually read this one. Thanks again.


	7. He accepts me?

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans, all I own is my OC and he is now disguised as Red X.

Thanks for the reviews that have been given. I hope you keep reviewing because I wont update after this until I get at least two for this chapter. Thanks enjoy the story.

Beast Boy was confused. Red X was Shadow? Then it all made sense to him, Shadow was Red X to hide but had been found any way. And now here he was ready to fight the Justice League without any help. No way was that ever gonna happen, he, Garfield Logan, would fight for his 'big brother' even if it was against the Justice League. Now all he had to do was get the nerve to step in between him and _Superman._ BB gulped, this was gonna take a lot more nerve than just deciding to help.

"You are honestly ready to throw your life away in front of your brother?" Superman was astonished, Shadow seemed to have made a change of personality along with his change in masks. He was ready to fight the seven most powerful superheroes in the world, what had made him so confidant, he didn't honestly think that the Titans would side with him, did he?

Shadow then spoke without the distortion inhibiting his voice. "If you feel uncomfortable about fighting me seven to one, then how about we make this more even. I fight each of you one at a time, with no interruptions or assistance by the others. You can decide the order. Take your time I'm not in any hurry." The taunting in his voice about them having conscience problems about fighting him was exactly what they needed to prod them into accepting his offer.

The league huddled and considered what to do with him. They could either go against their morals by all attacking him at once or they could play his game of fighting one-on-one. They chose the latter. They were still superheroes after all and believed in fair play. Flash was the first to speak, "Fine, we'll play your little game, but I'm going first. To bad the others won't get their chance at seeing if you can live up to your claims about being so good."

"**_Fine by me, let's see just how fast the great 'Flash' really is." _**With the distortion back in his voice, X's taunts seemed even more arrogant. Unknown to every soul present Shadow didn't want to hurt anyone but the man of steel. He still had amazing respect for the Bat. And the others hadn't really ever done anything to him. Wait, he did want the damn martian to pay the price for forcibly entering his mind three years ago. Though he had never told anyone, that was why he had run away from Gotham and tried to disappear. He had told the stupid alien to stay away from his mind, his last place that was his and his alone, the only place he wasn't just Robin's Shadow, but then J'onn had invaded his privacy anyway saying that he needed to know if he could trust him. Blane Grayson would never forgive that invasion of his mind, no matter how much good the alien did for the Earth.

The Flash came charging in hoping to catch the young man off guard, but the X suit was easily able to track his blazingly fast progress, but even with the suit X wasn't able to avoid the lightning quick punches that were aimed at him. After a series devastatingly fast attacks, X fell to the ground seemingly defeated. Suddenly rising with a 'is that all you got' look plainly seen through the mask. Then, faster than even Flash could react, an X flew through the air and pinned him to a wall(picture the one that he used against Starfire to the wall with). Flash then tried to get out of the X he found that it began to constrict the more he struggled. Flash had actually been defeated.

Hawk Girl decided that she would be the next to try and catch the mysterious thief. She flew toward him the energy mace in her hand cackling to life. She began swinging at him with her usual rage and tiring energy. She knew that she couldn't give him the chance to send an offensive attack after seeing what had happened to Flash and so their little fight went on with Shadow trying to find the slightest opening.

While the other Titans and league members were mesmerized by the intricate dance in front of them Robin walked up to Batman for some straight forward answers. "Why are you trying to bring him in? What did he do to have the entire league after him?" Robin was almost livid at this point wondering why the older heroes didn't have anything better to do than harass a younger one.

"We haven't had many problems with the major villains in the past few weeks and Clark decided that we needed to take the time to weed out the tares from the wheat, or some other farmer term like that. So we did some research and found that your brother has been racing his motorcycle in a illegal circuit." It was obvious that Batman was not to pleased with the other's decision to arrest the young man.

"You mean that Superman is using this as an excuse to attack shadow for all the times he disrespected him?" Robin was having difficulty believing that the Man of Steel could be so shallow. He looked up to the guy for Pete's sake.

"That's exactly what I'm saying. Apparently, Shadow didn't quite make the best impression with the other members as well. But don't worry, I'm not going to side with my teammates on this one because Shadow has earned my respect with the skills he has shown over the past few years, and the ones he's demonstrating now." They both turned their attention back to the melee going on in the middle of an intersection as Hawk Girl sweeping in to deliver a final blow stood stunned when X disappeared.

Looking around her she gave a startled cry when an X soared out of the shadows and clamped her arms and wings to her side. The onlookers were stunned, this kid had just taken down two of the league's members! The next on the list was Wonder Woman. She wasn't as used to fighting technology as the others were and soon found out that it was only her superior strength and reflexes that were keeping her from a similar fate as the others.

Batman and Robin resumed their talk with the Bat explaining how they had found Shadow. "Even though he can hide his mind from J'onn now, it is still obvious as to who's mind is his. There is almost a negative space where his mind should be and so far he is the only one we know of on this planet to have that well guarded of a mind. So, all we had to do was find that mind and identify who he was disguised as." Batman was also telling Robin without words that the searching for the negative space had been his idea. He was proud of that fact but didn't flaunt it around.

Robin smirked, he could tell what the unsaid portion of his mentor's story meant. He was impressed my the fact that his brother had the ability to keep the unparalleled telepathic abilities of the martian confused and bewildered.

Raven, who had overheard that last statement was impressed as well. "You mean that he kept the Martian Manhunter's mind from reading his?" there was a slight presence of disbelief written into her monotone. That was a feat not even she had been able to accomplish when she had arrived at this planet. She would have to ask Shadow to teach her that sometime, if he could keep out J'onn without any telepathic abilities, then maybe she could fight away the nightmares that her 'dear father' sent.

"Yes, but it is almost as if he isn't alive to do so, he's buried his mind and thoughts so deep he can be outwardly expressing emotion, but not even someone in tune with other's emotions can actually tell if he is feeling them. I'm sure you have noticed this miss Roth?" Batman was really quite impressed with the boy he had thought would amount to nothing, He now wished that he had spent more time with the boy, then maybe, just maybe, they wouldn't be in this position now.

"So what your saying is the league came after him because he had injured their egos over three years ago?" Robin couldn't believe how incredibly stupid that sounded.

Apparently, neither could Raven, "What! That's why they've been hunting him down is because he didn't worship the ground they walked on like so many other young heroes do!" That was ridiculous! They were ruining his life because they felt that since he didn't think very highly of them he had questionable motives.

"That's exactly why they want him to go to jail. Superman was beside himself with joy when he received the news that Shadow had been involved with something that wasn't necessarily an approvable hobby for a young hero. But it seems as if he has it under control." Batman redirected the two teen's attentions back to the fight. X seemed to have finally imagined a way to defeat the Amazonian Princess. He was sending xinothium energy, crackling in the form of electricity, through his gloves to boost the amount of power he hit with. Soon a very bruised and bloody Wonder Woman fell to the ground unconscious.

Lantern was the next to attack him, and attack he did. Using his ring to try and trap the teen in side an energy field he was able to quickly capture the young man, but X had different ideas and calmly walked over to the side of the barrier and pressed his palm to it. With in a matter of seconds the shield was disrupted by the glowing X on the palm of his hand. Oh yes, seeing that look on GL's face was priceless, X had a camera in his mask quickly take a picture of it to put in a photo album, one day. X then decided that he needed to go on the offensive against this one. Taking lantern by complete surprise with the sudden change in tactics, X teleported himself to where he was right above the hero and threw a handful of his ninja star X's at the league member's back but they only succeeded in letting Lantern know he was there. The older hero quickly used his military training to adjust to the change of temperament and went on his own offensive strike by sending a beam of energy straight for Shadow.

After teleporting himself to safety X used his imaginative abilities to think up a command for the highly unstable xinothium stored in his suit. X spent the next few minutes dodging the blasts by teleporting or cart wheeling out of the way. After a few moments of allowing Lantern to re-adjust to his original tactic of evade and wait for the right opportunity, he teleported himself from about fifty feet away, still looking like he was buying time, to fight in front of the older man. Then quicker than anyone could react he slapped his right palm onto the GL's ring and stepped back, ready for this match to finally come to hand-to-hand combat. GL, seeing him just stand there sent a blast straight towards the smirking boy. But nothing happened, looking down at his ring Lantern saw a red X on top of the lantern insignia. X then laughed in his distorted and creepy voice and blasted another X straight at the League member and it pinned him to a wall right next to Flash.

"**_Don't worry, it'll where off in a few hours I couldn't spare that much energy into it. I do still have to fight a kryptonian and that'll hopefully take some of my energy to accomplish." _**Both in the same sentence mocking Superman, and letting the defeated hero know that he had some compassion. That one sentence changed at least GL's view about him, seeing how he noticed that without the ring John would feel more than useless. Turning to Superman he said, once again back to his arrogant self, **_"You know scientists everywhere are worried about what xinothium might do to you and your cousin supes. Some, think that it might have similar effects to red kryptonite. But don't worry, most think that it just might help the powerless person, such as myself, have a ghost of a chance to compete with you. Am I right in saying that you want next shot?"_**

Superman didn't even answer, without warning he launched himself at the young boy, not even worried about what he might accidentally do to him since he was only human. X seemed to be waiting for this and disappeared the moment the man was about to smash him with a bone-crushing punch. Using the same fighting tactic that he had against Diana(Wonder Woman), he slammed a fist into the Man of Steel. Turns out, he really does feel like he's made of steel, because X had to teleport away shking his injured hand. He needed to come up with a new trick. He found himself hard-pressed to find even a second to think of one though, because Superman was constantly attacking. X tried everything in his rather heavy book of tricks, but each one failed worse than the last. It looked to the observers that this fight wasn't going to end prettily, when X surprised everyone by pressing both palms onto the kryptonian's face covering the eyes.

"Dude don't, he'll fry your hands with his heat vision thingy!" Beast Boy was the first member of the Titans to speak and reveal who they sympathized with.

Suddenly Superman yanked himself out of Shadow's grasp and screamed in agony. When Superman was finally able to look over at his opponent he saw Shadow show him the X's on his palm with their quickly fading mirrored surface. Shadow had figured out how to disable the lasers that shot out of his eyes, because when he tried to shoot them at him from a distance they didn't work.

"**_You know, you'll have to let those heal for a few days before you try to use them again. You just damaged your retinas."_** For the first time she had met him, Raven could actually feel an emotion coming from Shadow. He was happy, he was finally doing something that Robin couldn't, he was fighting Superman and he wasn't dead yet.

Superman came at him with renewed vigor, no one had ever been able to so easily slip under his skin and drive him crazy. Shadow however was calmly remembering one of the few lessons he had been taught by Bruce, 'Try to unnerve your opponent and drive him into a rage, he will then lose some of his critical thinking abilities and rely on pure instinct, which can be exploited.' Shadow had taken that lesson to heart and that was how he fought, by being a taunting, arrogant, yet creepy opponent.

Superman was losing it, even Beast Boy could see that, his attacks were becoming sloppy allowing Shadow to think of a way to stop the enraged hero. Luckily for the League, Batman had banned any reporters from coming within distance to see what they were doing, so the league wouldn't be publicly humiliated. Finally, Shadow thought of a new attack plan and blasted a continuous beam of xinothium energy towards the kryptonian and it seemed to have the desired effect because in the beginning he had made sure fire progress, but the unique radiation from the xinothium ore was seeping energy away from his body and he didn't even notice. He finally got close enough to grab Shadow but the boy had different plans. He grabbed the older man's wrist and twisted him around pinning him to the ground. While Superman tried to figure out where this strength had come from the people watching realized that the xinothium had drained the Man of steel of his strength, temporarily making him an ordinary human being. And Shadow was able to fight any normal human. He then pinned Superman to the wall right next to the others because he now took the time to pin up the two girls as well, his trophy wall. He took another picture, yes this was turning out far better than he had intended, but now he turned his attention to the one he wanted to hurt the most, he wanted to reveal what this alien had done to him years ago, he was ready to teach a lesson to the martian that he should never enter his mind without express permission.

"_**Now Martian, it's time for you to learn what I do to people who invade my sanctuary without my permission, or even asking for it."**_ The ones who were watching at first thought that Shadow must have some secret cave that he went to and hid all of these awesome things that he didn't want others to see, like robot monkey ninjas, or an advanced genetics lab where he made mutant clones. Okay, the whole lab and ninja thing was only Beast Boy, but no one considered it to be his mind yet.

J'onn then quickly leapt into action, shape-shifting himself into a giant snake he sprung towards the boy to constrict him until he lost consciousness. But Shadow was ready for this and used the same goopy X that was used to stop BB's shape-shifting abilities to trap this one, but he added a special touch. When the goop collided with him and slammed him to the ground J'onn tried to phase himself through it but found that the boy had counted on that, because the second he did the goop sent an electrical charge throughout his entire body. The after effects of the charge left him week and unable to escape. He knew that Shadow would now explain what had happened to the others because Batman had made his choice to not fight his former apprentice, even though he may be the only one capable of defeating him.

Shadow knew this to and cautiously turned around to see the Bat's reaction. What he saw surprised him and brought a feeling he had never felt before and had no experience with, the one you get when a Parent or parent like figure approves of what you did and accepts who you are. Batman was walking towards him and well he seemed like he was about to hug him but then quickly realized what he was doing and just put his hand on the boy's Shoulder and asked, "Would you accept my apologies about how I treated you and think about becoming my son?" While he said this Batman handed him one of the communicators used by the Batfamily, the communicator that he had never been offered whil he lived in Gotham. "You don't have to answer yet but please consider it, we may not have told you this but we all missed your strange habits after you left. You also might want to get on that bike of yours and get out of here, I think Clark's regaining his strength.

"You have know idea how good it feels to finally be wanted by someone, and not just because Rich wouldn't be separated from me. I'll have to think about the offer, but I will do at least that, think about it." Shadow's voice had been relieved of it's distorted quality and he sounded happy. In fact, Raven actually felt that emotion come from him before he shoved it back into the abyss he hid it in.

"_**Now just so that something gets cleared up I suggest you ask J'onn what I was talking about, he won't be able to lie while he's covered in that goop. And I might be gone for a little while until this blows over and their pride and dignity return, but I suggest you make it clear that the public will know about the next fight and will cover it. Titans, Take care of yourselves, I'll be back in a few months more than likely."**_ With those words said he pressed a button on his belt and Shadewing came rushing out of no where to open her casing and allow him to get in. As if remembering something he had forgotten to say, he turned around to face the only ones he had ever cared about. **_"Just so ya'll know, I'm gonna keep this suit, but feel free to call me Shadow. Take care of my old uniform bro."_**

He turned and before allowing the casing of his bike to close around him he pointed a palm towards a wall and fired and X at it. Once the X hit it seemed to tear open the very fabric of space and time opening a portal. He then blasted through the already closing portal. Just barely getting the tail end of Shadewing through before it resealed itself.

While all other witnesses of the strange event struggled to find the words to ask what just happened, Cyborg answered for them. "That dude just created a controlled portal into another time or dimension. I have got to have a tech talk and comparison when he gets back. The others just laughed at the dazed tone of voice he said it in, but Batman silently chuckled to himself and Starfire was just confused at how everything had just turned her world upside down, Red X was a criminal and did not look like the picture of Shadow that friend Robin had shown her(she thought that their masks were a part of their face). And yet everyone had called him Shadow and the Justice League were good guys but everyone was treating them badly right now. Why was everything so confusing? Oh well, She was just happy her friends were happy, and Robin had been noticing her more and more. (A/N: naive idiot. In case you haven't noticed I don't really like Starfire but she hasn't really played a major role yet, but will when Shadow returns.)

They then walked over and got only a little information out of J'onn but they could see why shadow had been so angry, his mind really was the only sanctuary that was his and only his, they would have been angry as well if they were him. Raven however, last all respect for the Martian after hearing the story from him, about how he had forced his way into Shadow's mind and tried to learn all he could about him. He had apparently grown used to knowing what the people he worked with were thinking and had grown nervous when Shadow had resisted his first few attempts and had asked him to stop. '_How immature, why didn't he think of explaining his reasons for wanting to get in to Shadow, shadow would have understood and only shielded certain parts from him, but no, a who knows how old martian had to try and break him. At least it came back and bit him.' _

The Titans, plus Batman, went back to the tower to eat and try and guess where Shadow had gone, Beast Boy and Cyborg thought he went to the future, Starfire was convinced he went back to remedy the problems of his past, but Robin, Batman and Raven said that that one was a definite no. He would never change who he was, and was probably going to fix something that had bothered one of them. Little did they know just how close to the mark they had hit, he was in Azerath to learn how to aid Raven in the now impending doom her prophesy brought. What he wasn't expecting, would be the physical changes he would experience from going to that realm.

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Hey what do you think? Please Review, this chapter turned out much better than I had planned and I really want your input. The next time he appears will be right after the events of Haunted and Spellbound, and Shadow discovers that they may not need him as much as they used to now that they have lasting friendships with each other. Thanks for reading

Anduril


	8. Dragon's Bane

Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Titans all I own is Shadow. I also do not own anything about LOTR or any of Tolkien's works, such as the Silmarillion, or the Hobbit, or anything that has to do with Middle Earth.

Hey every one thank you for the reviews that you have already sent in and I hope to get more. Just so you are warned, this chapter contains references to Tolkien's books, mostly the Silmarillion. I will clarify what those are after I finish the chapter. This chapter begins about two months after Shadow left. Enjoy.

Why, why did he have to be stuck here! Sure Shadow was grateful for all of the effort the Azerathians had put into helping him prepare his suit and body to fight magical creatures and all of the knowledge about the true history of the world they were craming into his head. But they were so damn boring! Azar and Arella were the worst. He needed excitement and problems that needed fixing in his life. But these people lead the 'perfect' lives! They had already solved the problems their society had ages ago. They had no emotional turmoil, no physical disabilities, no pain. No wonder Raven didn't enjoy the emotional overloads that she felt from her normal teenage friends, she thought that everyone was supposed to be calm, balanced, and frikkin emotionless! Shadow was dying here! He needed emotional turmoil in others so that he could ignore his own to help them. Here he was with them telling him to face his emotions and meat them head on, he didn't do that! He needed to help others to distract himself from him well-hidden feelings for Raven, needed distractions from the turmoil his mind becomes when he thinks, but these people had no problems and were telling him to remove his own.

They had to be robots, that was it, Beast Boy would agree with him on that. Wait a second, did he just think like Garfield? Now Shadow was really mad at himself for the real reason he was mad, he missed the companionship he felt while around the Titans. Here he was dependant on others, something he had sworn to never allow himself to do again. This had caught him off guard, he wasn't supposed to depend on others, but he had always assumed that that meant not going to others for advice or relying on others to make yourself feel better. But he had become dependant on three teenagers just needing him. He had become dependant on them to distract him from the emotional train wreck that he lived with inside his mind. Just being there for them soothed him like a drug or something. He had become addicted to being someone else's support pillar. He was pathetic. Oh well, he had to go to his stupid history lesson with Arella today. At least it was one about the first age of Middle Earth with all of the wars and monster slayings that he enjoyed learning about. Azar found it amusing but Arella didn't. Maybe afterwards he would go and ask Azar's opinion about his addiction… yes… that was the word for what he had an addiction to helping his friends to disguise his own inner turmoil. Well He had better get moving, he was going to learn about the Narn I Hin Hurin, Translated: The Story of the Children of Hurin. It included the slaying of Glaurung, the father of Dragons.

Shadow, surprisingly dressed as a citizen of Azerath(His X suit was being upgraded with magical and technological advances by the amazing scientists of Azar) raced towards the large building in the center of the city. It was a museum and learning center as well as the home of Azar, Arella, and at one time Raven.

As he entered the room he had been told to go to the previous day for the history lessons he saw what had to be the most wicked looking sword ever made sitting in a glass case. In fact there were hundreds of artifacts in this one. He was about thirty minutes early because he was eager to learn about the Tale of Turin Turumbar, a man that many of the older, more learned Azarathian monks had compared him to. Apparently he was a man cursed to do great deeds but always live under an impending curse and doom. He slowly read the plaques that described each artifact's history. There was the Dragon Helm of Dor'lomin, The clothing worn by Turin Turumbar when he was the Mormegil, the Black Sword. But what caught Shadow's attention after a few minutes was the sword that had given him the name. There sitting in a place of honor because of its historic value was Gurthang, the Iron of death. It was this sword that all dragon's hated yet feared, for it was the blade that had at long last taken the life of the first dragon, Glaurung.

As he was admiring the artifacts, Arella came and stood next to him. "I see you have taken a liking to the sword of the man you are compared to by so many." She said this with the hopes that she had finally caught him off guard. It had become the goal of every person on Azerath to try and sneak up on him.

"Yes I have, I can see why it is held in a place of honor here though. On Earth it would have been placed there because it is an amazingly crafted weapon, but here it is in a place of honor because of what it did, it proved that the evil of dragons could be killed as it was the first to do so." Shadow didn't even flinch when he heard her speak. Yes I have heard about the supposed similarities between us. That's why I came so early, I'm interested to learn about a possible kindred soul.

So his lesson went on that day, He learned about all of the hardships and heartbreaks Turin endured and couldn't help but agree with the comparisons between him and the Mormegil.

Back on Earth, the Titans had just endured one of their most trying times as a team yet. Robin had had some kind of chemical inhaled into his system, causing him to 'see' the Slade that was supposed to be dead. The trauma from the event had nearly killed him. Only a surprising decision on Raven's part and Robin's own deductive reasoning had saved his life. The aftereffects of that night would still be felt for years after, but at the moment the Titans were just glad that it was over. Three of the Titans hadn't yet realized what was bothering them so much. None of their normal activities were giving them the pleasure and enjoyment they used to. Beast Boy wasn't enjoying his gamestation competitions with Cyborg as much as he had a few months ago. It was very confusing to the poor shape-shifter, man he wished Shadow was here to explain what this lonely feeling was. He thought it must have something to do with Terra having turned to stone almost six months before. When Shadow returned from whatever he was doing he would have to ask for his advice on what this incomplete feeling was.

Robin on the other hand knew exactly what was bothering him. He had felt this exact feeling when Shadow had left him and Gotham behind before eventually reentering the Boy Wonder's life. Robin had no idea why it was so much worse this time, he had a sinking feeling that Raven might be broadcasting her loneliness without him there through the bond that she had made on that night he had been haunted by his lack of fulfillment when it came to Slade. He had a feeling that that night would make it life very difficult for the two teens. _'So this is what Shadow endures with three people, Raven only being one of his. How does he deal with three other peoples problems when he has so many of his own. I don't think that even Raven can truly compare to his. She at least had people to help her learn how to deal with it. Shadow's techniques can cause insanity, but he won't listen to reason when it comes to what goes on in his head.' _Robin was having trouble focusing on his training now. He was having problems when it came to the relation ship he wanted with Star. He had just realized after the latest Slade incident that she was just to naïve for him. She would never even try to understand what made him, him. She would just try to change how he thought and worked to suit her slightly unrealistic view of the world. No they just weren't right for each other, but how was he gonna tell her that if she asked about _them_ one day? He was just gonna go to the gym and workout, maybe he could clear his head then.

Raven was in her room reading what she considered to be a very good book. It was about a young wizard named Malchior. She was reading to get her mind off of the emotions that had been plaguing her for the past few months. She couldn't understand what the emotions were no matter how hard she tried to figure them out. So she gave up on identifying them and decided to just wait until Shadow came back to tell her what the most annoying one was. She knew that some were her feelings of self worth, but the biggest problem was the one that felt very similar to loneliness but she couldn't see why she felt lonely, she was surrounded by people. Anyway, she decided to distract herself by reading her newest book. Luckily she was able to get so engrossed in the memoirs of the wizard. Just as she was getting to the part where the wizard was about to either defeat the dragon Roreck or die at his hands when the alarm went off. Rolling her eyes she headed down to the T car to go off and fight a giant heart, such a pathetic villain. Heading back to the tower she immediately immersed herself inside the story again. With a few interruptions of course.

Shadow sensed a theme in his studies for the past week, they all involved dragons! And it didn't help that he was receiving way too many happy vibes from Raven and the other two, it didn't make any sense, they went from depressed and gloomy to being happy and perky. And that all happened within a few days, had Terra come back or something? Well anyway his lesson today involved the defeat of the dragon Malchior by a young wizard named Roreck. The pictures Azar used to depict him made him seem way too much the pretty boy, but then again a lot of wizards were around that time frame. Maybe they used their magic like a plastic surgery like thing. Well apparently he had been unable to defeat the dragon with his magical abilities so he sealed him in a book. That was anticlimactic. Just then, while he was looking at a painting depicting the hero while holding his book, his vision blurred and he saw things at a fast forward pace, _he saw Raven holding that same book and looking at an image of Roreck inside of it, talking to her! And he saw the eyes calling themselves Malchior? Then he saw Raven releasing him and unleashing the great evil that was the dragon, a shot of flames heading straight towards an unconscious Raven and the other Titans, quickly devouring them. _

He sat up in a jerky motion and saw Azar standing over him with a worried expression on her face. "What happened? What did you see?" No one knew about his bonds that he had created, or even that he knew Raven and that was why he wanted to learn how to battle magical creatures and people.

He quickly related his vision to Azar, forgetting for a minute that he was trying to hide his friendship with Raven from the people of Azerath. "So you saw the young girl I consider my granddaughter, releasing the very dragon we are talking about today from his prison. And you never thought to tell me about how she was doing or that you even knew her when you came here." The last sentence he relized his mistake and that she would probably not even consider teaching him the rest. "But even more mysterious than that is how you made these bonds with her and two of her teammates. Yes, how could a normal human make these without knowledge or experience as to how? You may be able to use the knowledge I am teaching you after all. And how do you think that I can teach you to defeat the evil that is Trigon when I myself have failed in that respect and no one knows how. But now you must follow this premonition and save your friends. I will allow you to borrow any of the weapons that have been used to fight dragons in the past if you promise that you will come back and finish your training. Do I have your word on that?"

There was no way that Shadow wasn't going, with or without her permission, but having it made him feel much better about the decision he had just made in his mind. "You have my word. And I will require my suit finished or not. I leave in an hour." With that he started to head towards the exit to his room, but he had a fleeting suspicion that the reason for all of the dragon slaying lessons meant that Azar had known about Raven being in trouble before this. "Oh, and I'm taking Gurthang." With that he headed to get his suit back and retrieve the sword from the case it was housed in, it didn't deserve to sit in a case, it was made for war.

Even sooner than he had hoped he was ready to leave. He had easily been able to retrieve his suit and belongings, the only problem he had was getting some senile old man to let him grab the sword, thought he was a security guard or something. **_"Well Shade, ready for another dimension jump?" _**He didn't even wait for the bike to answer as he created another portal with the xinothium he still had in his suit, luckily he had been able to install a more efficient xinothium generator. The technology possessed by the people of Azar was beyond imagination. He and Cy would have a lot of fun comparing tech when he got back, it was the perfect excuse to create a bonding with the team's other 'big brother'. He jumped into Shadewing and Rocketed towards the X shaped portal. He only hoped he wasn't too late.

Raven was shattered, Malchior had tricked her betrayed her, broken her heart, and now he was about to break her. She reached out with her powers yanking the wizard Roreck's spell-book to try and imprison the dragon again, but just as it was about to reach her had the dragon's jaws closed around it, followed by a gulping sound. Raven knew the end was near as the dragon's grip began to tighten. For some reason though, all she could think about was how disappointed she was that she never got to say good-bye to Shadow.

"_Did I make you cry? I used you, and now I'm going to crush your body and devour it ending your pathetic life."_ Malchior was laughing at her now, in his strange hissing voice. She couldn't believe she had ever let a monster like him get such a special place in her heart. Just as she was about to give in to the inevitable oblivion that would end her life she heard something she had never dared to dream would come to her rescue, not a night in shining armor, but something mush better.

"**_Sorry to break up your breakfast, but she's not on the menu." _**All of a sudden a black clad figure jumped towards the claw crushing Raven slashing a X shaped blade across the armored scales of the dark dragon, but easily slashing through them as if they were paper. Shadow yanked Raven out of the dragon's grip before he could react to the gash. Once he had Raven safely in the hands of Robin and the other Titans Shadow turned to face what would be his first test, the first in many tests to see if he was what Azar suspected, but he had no idea that she was watching him to see what he would do.

"_Well you must be the 'great' Shadow Raven told me about. Tell me if she couldn't beat me what makes you think that you, an ordinary human who relies on science to help him fight, can?" _The great worm was obviously amused that a boy thought he would be able to fight him, let alone win. The other Titans were watching mesmerized that Shadow could even stand that close to the dragon without being affected by the heat of its breath.

Shadow calmly stood his ground as the dragon tried an intimidation trick to get him to cower in fear. **_"Maybe the fact that I now have in my possession the bane of your first forefather." _**Then stunning the young teens watching the display shadow drew Gurthang from out of his belt. The edges glowed with a pale fire when the blade sensed that it had been drawn in battle to once again shed blood. **_I believe that there really is no other blade that can match it in history and craftsmanship, forged by the Dark Elf in the Elder days and the very thorn that shed the lifeblood of the first dragon." _**Raven was surprised at how well he knew the ancient history that was long forgotten here on Earth, but she wanted to know how he had gotten the blade, it was supposedly lost after Turin had committed suicide with it long ages before(she had never seen all of the artifacts in Azar's temple).

"_Yes I can sense that it truly is the blade of Turumbar, Master of Doom. But only those of Turumbar's lineage can actually wield it. Surely one as learned as you will know that that line failed with him." _The dragon had a hint of nervousness in his voice that blade was the most feared thing among the kindred of the dragons. Even Ancalagon the Black, his sire, had feared it.

"We will see about the strength issue when I send it into your black heart. You are a powerful dragon, but a weak one compared to the one this blade killed in ages past." With that Shadow teleported to try and catch the dragon off guard, but Malchior was a much faster dragon than most and was able to dodge away from the blade but it still bit into his skin causing a much worse word than a glancing blow like that should have. The blade seemed to drink the dragon's blood as none could be seen on the blade after causing the gash. Malchior then took flight to try and escape the cursed blade but shadow kept teleporting above him to try and force him back to the ground. The dragon became desperate and tried to roast the insolent warrior alive by breathing his flames onto the young man when he landed, and because of the flames the suit couldn't teleport. After the dragon had set the south side of the tower's roof ablaze he stopped certain that Shadow wouldn't survive the inferno, but when the burning stopped Shadow could be seen standing in the same spot he had been when the fire had hit him. The flames around him completely went out and he didn't have a scratch! Robin was the most confused, those were magical flames and the suit wasn't able to take them. But he quickly turned his attention back to the scene unfolding in front of him as if it were out of a fantasy movie. The dragon panicked, but because of the loss of blood from the blade's previous attempt to end his life, his reactions weren't fast enough to dodge Shadow's strike and the blade easily sliced through the flesh and bone piercing Malchior's heart. Gurthang seemed to drink the dragon's blood dry, because not a drop stained the tower's roof. When the dragon's body disappeared in a flash of black flames, Shadow turned back to the team and collapsed from the exhaustion. 

Shadow woke up in a dark room that he had never seen before. It had black walls with almost nothing on them. Except Gurthang hanging on pegs on one wall just above the doorway. Looking around himself he saw that it was sparsely furnished only the mattress that he was laying on. The Titans must have put him in here until he woke up. After all the Red X suit had been programmed to only come off if he told it to and no medical equipment would stay hooked up to him if he had it on.

Getting up he grabbed Gurthang off of its pegs and strapped it to his belt. Wlaking down the halls he deduced that it must be late at night or early in the morning, because everything looked familiar and he had only been in the tower at night when it was dark, never in the day when everything looks familiar. He walked into the main room hoping to leave a message with one of the Titans that he had to leave and would be back in a few months. What he found when he walked in was something that surprised even him.

The Titans were standing in the middle of the room, almost in a formation, with apprehensive looks on their faces. "What's this about?" shadow removed the distortion to make himself less intimidating. He was confused at the feelings he was receiving from BB, Robin, and Raven. They seemed terrified yet hopeful about his reaction to whatever they were about to ask him. What they did ask him was something that he had secretly wanted but never dared to hope for.

"H-hey bro, um… the team was uh… wondering if y-you maybe might consider… man this is hard… um… joining the Titans?" Robin was thinking he had just reached the point of no return. Either his brother would do the completely unexpected and say yes, or he left their lives forever and never came back, there would be no middle compromise or choice, it was one or the other. That's just how Shadow thought, now they just hoped their hunch on him wanting to be a Titan was right.

"W-what did you say?" Shadow stuttered, Beast Boy gained hope, Shadow never stuttered! Shadow was taken aback by this, why would they want him on the team?

"Dude, we want you on the team! You have no idea how lonely me, Rob, And Rae were without you here! I even became bored with kicking Cyborg's butt on the gamestation!" Beast Boy was in an absolute rant now and continued long after everyone had stopped listening as he went into the details about the fake matches he supposedly won.

"What he means to say is, well, we missed you and want you to be a permanent part of our lives." For some reason Raven was blushing as she said this. She had just recently, while hoping he wouldn't die, realized what she felt about Shadow, but luckily for her no one noticed her blush because at that instant Beast Boy began groveling at Shadow's feet in an attempt to convince him to stay. Picking BB up off the ground and standing him up Shadow surveyed the room. They really wanted him on the team and it wasn't a cruel joke like he had at first expected.

"I think I will." Gasps floated around the room. "But I will have to go back to the dimension I was in after a month or so to complete my training there. Don't even ask what my training is because I was forbidden to talk about it. But yes, I will become a Titan."

Beast Boy began running around the room balling because he had heard what he expected to hear, Shadow refusing but the Cyborg grabbed him and told him what Shadow had actually said and Beast Boy still ran around the room but changed into hundreds of hyperactive animals twittering and chattering happily. Robin came up and actually hugged his brother something that hadn't happened in a good long time. Raven came up and just gave him a small one, which he enjoyed more than he would ever care to admit. Just as Starfire was about to do her whole do you want to be my friend thing, Shadow walked past her to ask Cyborg to drive him to the mall to grab a few things for his room. They left and spent the whole time grabbing stuff only Shadow would decorate a room with and talking about the newest in car and computer tech.

Soon the two 'big brothers' of the team spent at least two-three hours in the garage a day talking about their teammates and the problems and little things that only big brothers would notice about them. Of course, most of the time was also spent working on the T car and other Titan vehicles while all of their banter was going on. Then he made sure to spend time on the gamestation with BB and Cy, that was at least an hour of his day there. Another two hours was spent in the gym with his brother working on new fighting plans and attacks for the team to work on. At least three hours were spent meditating with Raven. Then whatever time was left over from those, eating, and sleeping were spent as his alone time, a much needed necessity for him.

After about a week Starfire was able to corner him in front of the other Titans in the main room. "Please, where are you from, what is your favorite color, and would you be my friend?" Starfire was ready to see why her other friends thought so much about Shadow, she wanted to find a connection with him like her teammates had.

"**_I'm from Earth, my favorite color is black, obviously, and no." _**With that, Shadow walked back to his room for his alone time.

"Please, why does friend Shadow not want to be my friend?" Starfire was obviously hurt. Was there something wrong with her looks?(A/N: Yes I am going to make her kina shallow in this one, cause she is in the show)

"Star you have to let him try to understand your personality and try and find common ground with you before you can expect him to want to be your friend. He has something in common with all of us and if he didn't he wouldn't be here right now." Robin knew that this wasn't the whole reason that Shadow didn't like Starfire at the moment but couldn't bring himself to tell her that he would never want to be anything more than an acquaintance to her just because of her personality.

"But why did he become friends with Cyborg without the knowing to get him?" Starfire was puzzled about this. Why would he want to be friends with a half robot but not a pretty girl like her? Every boy she had ever met wanted to be her friend.

"Star, you need to understand that Cyborg and Shadow have major interests when it comes to technology and that makes them have something in common. Besides, Shadow isn't your normal hormonally driven teenage boy, a pretty face isn't enough to make him want to be around you like the other boys on this planet." Raven surprised everyone by speaking, she knew exactly what Starfire wanted and she knew what was bugging the girl. Star was becoming enamored by the mysterious new addition to the team and like most girls was attracted to the bad boys. She would get over the crush once Shadow 'crushed' the crush.

Yes, the young Tameranian soon gave up on the crush after the next couple days and went back to swooning over Robin. But their happily ever after wasn't quite in sight yet, in fact it never will. Because now it was Cy's turn to obsess over a criminal and it would threaten to tear the Titans solidarity apart.

So, let me know what you think. All references to anything of Tolkien's I do not own and are found in the Silmarillion. I hope you like it. Please I want reviews. I will not update until I get at least three new ones. Thank you for reading.

Anduril out.


	9. The End?

Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Titans. In fact I don't own anything in this fic except for Shadow. Any there may be References to LOTR.

Thanks for the reviews. Just please keep reviewing, I need to know if what I write is good or not. Thanks again,

Anduril.

Life for the Titans flew past in a rush. With Star trying to find common ground with Shadow. Shadow trying to avoid finding any with her. Cyborg becoming more and more upset about not having his own team. Robin becoming more relaxed since he had accepted that Slade was gone. Beast Boy having the absolute time of his life trying to startle Shadow as payback for all the times he scared the piss out of him. And finally, Raven opened up to her teammates more and more. But quickly things went downhill. IT started with Brother Blood being found in Steel City on the east coast. Cyborg then went into an amazingly accurate impression of Robin during the Slade obsession times. Cyborg had gone to help Bumble Bee and Aqualad, along with Speedy and two new heroes on the scene fight him. Cyborg had then left his old teammates in Jump City to join the Titans East. That was where things had become messy, Cyborg couldn't just let Robin and the others down easily, and Robin had to fight to preserve the team that had been through so much together. That was where they were now each in the main rooms of their respective towers arguing about it.

"We're a _team_ Cyborg, how could you just throw all of that away!" Robin was pissed. How could Cy just up and leave like this, hadn't they been through enough recently? The team was enjoying a break from the big supervillains and had been getting closer together as a team. At least Cy had made it seem like he was enjoying a good friendship with Shadow (who seemed to be getting the tall genes that still eluded the Boy Wonder, Shadow was now over six foot!). They had been spending a tremendous amount of time in the garage fixing the vehicles and working on new ideas for the Titans tech. This sudden decision seemed to have sent Shadow for a loop, he didn't want to be the official big brother for the team! Only Robin had noticed but Shadow was preparing to take a few months to finish what he had started.

"Look man, they need me! They have no experience when it comes to fighting crime as a team and they need me as their leader." Cy was frustrated. "Besides, its not like you'll be undermanned. You have your brother there and he knows the tower almost as well as I do. You'll be fine without me man."

"You mean you haven't noticed? Shadow's about to leave again but doesn't like drawn out goodbyes. Haven't you seen him secretly packing his gear and spare xinothium into Shadewing? He does it with you right there. Are you actually that blind!" Robin was not happy that Cy, who should have seen all of that, was actually saying they would be better off without him.

"Dude! That's not what he's doing! I asked him and he said he just wanted his spares within reach if a battle takes a turn for the worst." Cyborg was stunned, could Shadow really have been lying to him?

"Do you think I don't know my own brother's tactics? I know what he's doing. He's done this before and he told me the exact thing he told you. He's leaving Cy, and I don't think even _he_ knows how long he'll be gone!" Robin was fed up with this did Cy really think that they would be all right without him? Did he really think that abandoning the ones who care about you made you a man?

"I'm staying, end of discussion." With that the transmission to Robin's tower ended. Robin sat down with a heavy sigh. This was not going to be easy to break to the team.

The Titans had raced to Steel City as fast as they could after receiving Cy's garbled transmission about needing their help. The first battle ended in their quick and decisive victory with the element of surprise. Cyborg had been grateful that his old team was willing to forgive him about leaving them and came to his rescue. But he was a little worried when he found that Shadow had already left before Cy had announced his staying in Steel City, assuming that Cy would be back later that day. Along with the others Cy was able to easily battle his new teammates. But Blood had captured Cyborg and had started to tear him apart to see why he couldn't control Cy the way he could all of the others. Just before the end Cy had realized what really allowed him to resist Blood and defeated him.

It was two weeks before Raven's birthday and Shadow only had a few more days before the monks of Azar had taught him all they could. He would make it back in time and that was all he cared about. He would be there to do everything in his power to fight away her destiny. Luckily he didn't believe that people's lives were set in stone, even though he knew that his life was destined to hardship and sorrow, he could still control his attitude about it and his actions, they were his choice ultimately. Now he just needed to convince Raven of that.

He now wore his suit around Azerath, just with a black cloak similar to Raven's instead of his usual mask and cape. Apparently masks were outlawed among the Azerathians so they had started wearing hoods if they wanted to hide their faces. He soon got into that habit because of his supreme dislike of revealing his face to anyone. He couldn't wait to see the others again and hear about what had happened to them during his absence.

Just as he was preparing to go to bed he heard something that he had been told about, but had never actually thought would happen while he was here. Some alarm, was going off in the middle of the city. Looking out his window, he saw what appeared to be a fire off at the south side of Azerath. Upon closer inspection the flames took the shape of an army of fire demons. That was definitely not a prank racing to the door he grabbed Gurthang off the wall. Apparently he had earned the respect of many of the senior monks with his defeat of Malchior and had been presented it as a gift. He had a feeling that it had been more because the blade didn't want to leave its new master and had cut the man who normally tended it. Racing down towards the army he noticed that the Azerathians weren't mustering the strength of any army or fighters. It had him worried, were they just going to accept their deaths as something that was destined to be. _'They think way too highly of destiny'_ he thought. He had a promise to keep, and he wasn't about to let the armies of hell stop him.

Robin came home from training with the true master to find his team dressed like him! But he blew it off and just sat down to enjoy 'Robining' with them. They were severely enjoying just hanging out as a team. They began a spirited discussion about whether Shadow would have been dressed like Robin with the others. Well Cy, BB and Star were. BB was convinced that he would have, but the others thought that he would have considered it above him.

"Dudes, I'm telling you! Shadow would have done it. In case you haven't noticed he loves a good joke. In fact he pulls more than I do. Didn't you notice that after he left the pranks just seemed to stop? He taught me everything I know! But he doesn't leave a trace!" Beast Boy was beginning another rant and the others just tuned him out as he went on into the gruesome details about one of Shadow's better pranks.

"Yo, Rob, Rae, what do you guys think? Would Shadow have dressed up in Robin's stuff with us?" Bb had made him curious, did Shadow really have that kind of humor?

"Actually Cy, he would have. My brother always did have a very wicked sense of humor, but he would have still worn the full out Red X skull mask and made my suit darker. You know, the way he would make a Robin suit, with lots more black, and plenty of red instead of green. But yeah he would have joined you, actually he would have encouraged all of you to do it with him." Robin was holding back a chuckle as he said this. Shadow always did enjoy that kind of thing, he got some kind of kick out of it that no one else did. It was always more than just pretending to be someone else, to him it was getting to escape his strange form of life.

"Soo… Shadow would really have joined us?" Raven couldn't help but feel a little better about this knowing that Shadow would have.

"Yeah, sometimes he and I would secretly pretend to be Batman. He seems to find some kind of reprieve out of it that no one else can." Robin was struggling not to laugh at the memories of the 'Batman' days. Yet they always seemed to be his idea instead of Shadow's, he was just content to join him.

"Dudes! I just had the most totally… most amazing… most incredibly ingenious idea in the history of ideas! We… could… dress up… like Shadow." he held out that last part for the dramatic effect.

At first it looked like the others were about to condemn him for thinking about that kind of thing, but they hesitated. After all, who didn't want to see what being Shadow was like.

Finally, after what seemed like a lifetime, Cyborg spoke up. "I think he made a few spare suits. We could borrow some, I mean after all, he has almost as many as Robin does. And he took a lot with him to get them adjusted the same way as the one he always wears. He left a few spare ones he just so he had a normal one to wear when he just needs to fix or wash the others." Cy was speaking slowly as if he still wasn't sure it was the right thing to do. But after a few seconds of awkward silence, the teen superheroes all bolted towards Shadow's room at the exact same instant, they wanted to get as much time in the suits in before he got back. They wore them during their time at the tower for the next three weeks straight, but never in public or where someone could see them who wasn't in on the joke.

Surrounded by flame monsters and separated from the rest of the Azerathian defenders, Shadow all of a sudden felt an emotion that was very out of place. He felt giddy with anticipation, but was terrified about being found out. What he didn't want found out confused him but he didn't have time to worry about it at the moment, for as he looked around himself he saw that there was very little chance that he would be surviving this fight the more demons he killed, the more that appeared. There was just nothing to do but take out as many as he could in his Rage at failing to protect Raven. Slowly turning to face the next wave of monsters, Shadow raised the Black Sword and without the rage filled scream that most men let out before charging to their dooms, he decided that he would master his doom, and really earn the name the people of Azerath had given him, Turumbar.

The Titans soon forgot about Shadow and why he wasn't beck yet during Raven's ordeals on her birthday, when they discovered the Prophesy, and then finally when she left with Slade to fulfill it. Robin was looking for Raven, the others were fighting themselves, and Slade was going to get his flesh and blood back. The end of the world may not be the end of hope.

Slade was actually losing to something, this guardian of the underworld was much tougher than he had anticipated. Just as Slade was about to completely lose against him, the bomb he had placed on the door went off, with too much power, but Slade wasn't about to let the world end, he still had too many people to torture and hurt, but if the world ended he couldn't. So naturally, he went to help the Titans because it suited him. "Ah its good to have my own flesh and blood back." With that, Slade picked up the guardians axe and headed towards the surface. Unknown to him, another person was thinking just how good it felt to breath again. A tattered beaten figure walked out of the door and silently agreed with him, it was good to have his own flesh and blood back.

The Titans and Slade were fighting Trigon, and to Raven's absolute surprise, hurting him. They were on a constant offensive hoping that they would have enough strength to fight this being of awesome might. But they didn't, Trigon unleashed pure energy through his eyes, easily with one stroke knocking all of the Titans hopes out the door. Raven ran towards Robin to try and awaken him but he couldn't move from the strain his human body had been put through.

"**Daughter, you have served your purpose and will now join your friends. Did you know that your friend Shadow will also be there. Such a foolish boy thinking that he could single-handedly fight off my armies as they marched upon Azerath." **Raven was shocked. Shadow was dead! But how could he die! He couldn't have been witness to the destruction that was now Azerath. He couldn't be dead, She had fallen in love with him, but now he would never know how she felt. **"Yes Daughter, your friend died just within days of his return to Earth. The fool, he actually hoped to stop your destiny, but now you have served your purpose, giving up in the end, while he fought valiantly in the face of death trying to defend a city that had already crumbled before me."**

"I don't know about 'valiant' but I do know I'm not dead." Just then a figure dressed in black, flew across Trigon's face, slashing across the demon's nose. The figure stood and faced Trigon, hand raised towards the screaming demon while he waited for a clear shot. He was about to drain his two spare tubes of xinothium in a last ditch effort to slow this monster's rampage. Red energy and electricity cackled along Shadow's body as he charged the weapon he was hoping would work. He knew that he couldn't beat him with it, xinothium didn't have an ability to correctly fight demons, that was up to Raven. But he hoped to weaken the monster as well as temporarily blind him. Trigon finally healed the cut and turned towards the boy he had thought dead. As the demon's face turned his direction Shadow unleashed the energy that had been charged into his palm and fired a giant X towards Trigon's face. The blast hit him head on and an X like metal thing covered the demon's eyes and connected at the back of his head. When Trigon reached to tear the offending thing off it sent a huge charge of energy racing throughout his body weakening him more than he cared to admit.

The now fully awakened Titans turned to look at the person who had done this, they had heard Trigon's words and were stunned by what they saw. Standing there in a cloak similar to Raven's, but so torn and tattered that it looked as if he had fought every demon in hell to get here, stood Shadow. At least they thought it was him, he had no mask on and his hood had been blown back by the force of his own blast. But Robin knew who it was as he teleported down to where they were standing.

"Come on, let's show this demon what happens when he messes with the ones I care about." The tone of the guys voice was enough to convince them of who he was. But Raven couldn't help but notice that he looked far different from his brother Robin. Blonde hair and green eyes that didn't seem to go with his dark personality, but she couldn't help but feel that they were the correct colors for him. BB certainly thought that he looked way different than anyone had thought he would, but couldn't find the words to bring it up now.

Shadow then lead the Titans into a fight that they still had no chance of winning, but as long as they kept him from pulling that X off his face they still had the smallest of chances, Shadow and Robin were acting just like twins should, their different styles and moves perfectly complementing the other's. Robin was swinging towards the demon on one side with his grappling hook, throwing every bomb and disc he still had in his belt hoping to do some decent damage before he and Shadow crossed across the demon's chest trying to wound him deep enough to at least send him scurrying back towards his hole in hell. Shadow was mirroring the discs and bombs with as many destructive X's that he could slowly but surely draining the last of his xinothium, he was running on half power to begin with because of his battles through the pit of hell on his way to the door. As they began their cross in the middle, he and Robin both landed on the lower part of the demons' rib cage. Defying every law of physics, they stabbed their respective swords into his chest and began to run upwards in a diagonal line dragging the blades with them. Cutting a huge, X shaped gash in the demon's body. As they jumped away, Beast Boy and Cyborg came charging in slamming their attacks into his chest, Beast boy somehow turned into a green version of Malchior and began to claw and scratch in a ferocious attempt to over power the demon. Cy and Star were blasting the arms to keep them from tearing the dragon form off his chest. Robin and shadow renewed their attack hoping to aid BB, in tearing the demon's flesh. But Trigon used his eye beams to blast his new 'crown' off and immediately incapacitated the teens, knocking them all to the ground.

Raven, who had been silently regaining hope at the sight of Shadow's return, became angered at the fact that her friends were willing to risk everything for her but she hadn't done anything but lose hope. When her father's blast came towards her she raised her hands in an instinctual movement to create a barrier. When the dust cleared, She could be seen standing there, not as the little girl she had been turned into moments before, but the Teen Titan she had been, just dressed in white with hair the length of Starfire's. She then proceeded to blast her 'father' with her newfound white powers.

"You aren't my father! Fathers protect you, Fathers raise you." She was bringing these words home by blasting him after every sentence. "You may have been responsible for my birth, but I was protected by the monks of Azar, and I was raised by my friends!" With those final words, Raven defeated her father and her destiny, while simultaneously repairing the damage that had been done to the world. Reverting everything back toe the way it had been earlier that day.

As Raven slowly floated back down to her friends, she could see the happiness on each of their faces. She landed and Cyborg said, "Unbelievable." Raven answered by running towards Robin and Shadow throwing her arms around them both saying, "No, someone believed." Then the Titans made their way back to the tower to have a _'We Stopped The End of the World!'_ party, as Beast Boy called it.

When they got home Shadow said he had to get something from the garage and left to get it. The others changed into fresh clothing and Raven cut her hair again, disappointing Shadow. But then Shadow came back into the main room dressed in fresh clothes similar to the ones he had jus had on, just these included a Robin style mask, covering his eyes.

After the party and Robin and Raven discussing why he never gave up hope on her, Raven walked towards Shadow's room to ask him about why he had been in Azerath and to hopefully if she got the courage tell him how she felt. She spent the next three hours in there telling him about what had happened in his absence and getting a few interesting tidbits of info about his adventures since he had left. He wouldn't discuss what had happened after azerath was attacked but Raven didn't press him for information, already having a good guess about him fighting his way through the underworld and defeating a guardian then blowing the wall open. But they never got around to the problem about _them._ For now they were both content to just be in each others presence.

What do you think? Please review, sorry about how short this one is. I hope to write a longer one for the next chapter. I think I'm gonna resurrect Terra soon, but I don't know for sure, and could someone tell me the names of the people in charge of Cadmus? I really need them for the next few chapters, thanks again.

Anduril.


	10. Blood Red

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans, or LOTR, but I do own Shadow.

Hey, sorry I took so long to update, I had two essays to write, a math test, and a science pretest to do this week. Thanks for all of the reviews, I hope you enjoy this next chapter!

The Titans were bored. You would think they would jump at the chance to relax after all they had been through in the past few months, but they were bored out of their minds. It had been at least two months since the defeat of Trigon, and there hadn't been a single new or major villain since. Not even the HIVE 5 had tried anything, the biggest threat they had had to deal with was Johnny Rancid, who, lets be honest, is just annoying.

Everyone was bored enough to try anything new as long as it broke routine. Wait I take that back, _almost _anything, Cyborg still fought tooth and nail about not eating tofu, and BB still fought just as hard about not eating meat. Some things never change. It had gotten to the point where Beast Boy was seriously considering picking up a book and reading it, that was a scary thought to the others, but they were all beginning to consider new and unusual activities just to do something. Raven had actually almost started playing the gamestation one night at about two in the morning, but then BB and Cy came down to have a spontaneous rumble on it and her pride wouldn't let her be caught dead touching the machine.

Robin had been considering actually spending all of his time playing video games with the other two guys. While normally that wouldn't shock anyone, the activity that he was going to cut back on was searching for leads on where Slade might be. That was something to be worried about! Starfire had taken to trying to become an 'Earth' chef, and had stopped making her Tameranian puddings. Cyborg seemed to have found a project to occupy himself with, but the only one who knew anything about it was Shadow, who would spend hours in the Garage with Cy and all you would hear after those doors closed was the sound of power tools and computer keys. Shadow was the only one who wasn't complaining about the boredom in one form or another. In fact, he always seemed to know what he wanted to do. This fact alone made everyone else jealous, they wanted to know why he didn't find all of this peacefulness disturbing but no one had the nerve to ask him.

* * *

Raven was going to try a video game tonight just to prove to curiosity that it was a mindless, brain-rotting thing that wasn't worth her time. That damn emotion was driving her up the wall! It had been bugging her for days when she saw a new game that BB and Cy had been playing, some kind of RPG game that involved creating your own character and choosing a class, race, physical features and their name. Even then she was about to ignore it but saw that you could play as a sorceress. After that her curiosity wouldn't let her be in a different room if they were playing, and after a while she began to enjoy the story line of the game, it was just as complex as some of her favorite books, the ones she only read in her room so that BB wouldn't make fun of her for reading fantasy instead of horror.

She was silently making her way down the stairs to where she knew the game would be waiting. She just hoped that the three boys wouldn't be there already playing. They had been playing for almost three days straight and had made almost no progress in the game and she was sure that she could do better than any of them. As she was headed to the main room she heard indistinct voices coming towards her and she quickly melted into the shadows to avoid being seen. As the voices got closer she could finally make out what was being said, and by whom.

"Are you sure you don't want to tell the others yet Shadow? I mean, they are beginning to wonder, and haven't all of the experiments worked so far?" Cyborg's deep voice echoed down the hallway.

"Yes Cy, I'm sure I don't want to tell them yet. I still don't have enough evidence that I can pull this off yet. And while all the experiments have been successful, they were all on a small scale, a hair here and there, but we still aren't sure that we could do the whole body, and I don't want to get their hopes up about something that might not work." Shadow was obviously tired of arguing about what they had been working on in the garage, but Raven couldn't figure out what they were talking about. A hair here and there? What were they working on?

"All right man, if you say so. But I still think they have a right to know." Cyborg definitely sounded as if he was saying that they would talk about it later.

"I know, but not yet. Remember what I told you would happen if we weren't successful? I want to make sure it will work before Beast Boy adds his pressure to the pressure we already have. I don't want to disappoint him, but I know he will rush us to finish faster. There can be no mistakes on this one." Shadow seemed to feel torn between being honest with is friends, and making sure whatever he was doing worked.

"I guess you're right about BB, but we tell them in three days, fair enough?" Cyborg seemed to have forgotten how BB would react to their news, making him more accepting of the idea of keeping it a secret. "Well, I'm hittin the hay. See ya tomorrow." Cyborg then lumbered over to the elevator and headed to bed.

"You can come out now, I know you're there." Shadow started to head towards the kitchen in the main room obviously knowing about the questions Raven was about to ask and started the water on to boil.

Raven sighed, she knew better than to hide from him, it never worked. "What are you two working on that is so fragile?" Shadow smiled, good ole Raven. Straight to the point.

"I know why you originally came down here." Raven gasped, how had he known? She decided that there was no way he could have found out and decided to call his bluff.

"Really, if you know then you wont mind me asking what it is I supposedly came down to do?" Raven smirked, she finally had the upper hand on Shadow. She would never let him live this one down.

"Well you certainly didn't come down for tea. That leaves me to assume that you want to play the new video game I got Cy and BB." It was obvious that Shadow was enjoying the completely shocked look on her face. He couldn't help but think that she looked extremely cute with her mouth hanging open and a blush from pure embarrassment creeping onto her face.

"How did you know I wanted to play that?" Raven was too stunned that someone had found out to try and deny it.

"Well actually I got that game to get you to play. But I knew that it was working when I saw you completely enthralled by the story line. You fooled the others with the book in your lap, but you can't fool me." Shadow was so much enjoying this. "But I'll say again, I'll teach you how to play, and even play with you at night, but you have to promise to drop the subject of what Cy and I are working on until we tell everyone. Deal?" He put his hand out for her to shake, he knew she wouldn't be able to resist his offer.

"All right. I'll keep quiet about it for three days, but you have to tell us then."

"I will, now how about I teach you how to play? I'll bet we can create two characters that can absolutely destroy the other three's in the versus mode in just a couple hours of gameplay tonight." Shadow was glad he would be able to spend some time with Raven. After all, that had been his original intent with the game to begin with. He knew more about her than she would ever give him credit for.

After spending about three hours playing that night, Raven finally decided that she needed a little sleep. As she walked up the stairs she couldn't help but think that the game was just as good as she had imagined, but she had enjoyed Shadow's company even more than that. She would ask him if he wanted to play again the next night just so she could enjoy his company some more.

* * *

Three days later Cyborg gathered the other Titans together for news that he said would change their lives. Beast boy was the hardest to get to come to the main room to hear it.

"Dude! You can't make me I don't want to hear any so called life changing news!" Beast Boy just blurted out while he lounged around on the roof doing nothing in particular.

"Why not, it's not like you have anything better to do. And anyway Shadow hasn't had any sleep in the past three days getting this to the point he wanted it to be mostly for you." Cyborg was ding his best to be patient with the younger boy, but sometimes Beast Boy drove him insane.

"Wait, you mean that the reason Shadow looks like crap is because he wanted to do something for me?" BB was astonished, nobody ever went through anything like that for him, at least not since Terra. "Fine I'll come, but this had better be worth my while."

Once Cy had the others gathered together Shadow came into the room carrying a bunch of charts and a disc that he put into the computer. Raven noticed that he looked tired, as if he had gone right back to working on the project every night after she went to bed. Other that Cyborg she was probably the Titan that had seen him the most in the past three days. The others were completely engrossed as Cy brought in a small device and a small vial. The vial seemed to have a peace of rock in it. What were those two trying to do? Grow rocks?

"All right if I may have everyone's attention. I would like to explain the strange behavior of myself, and Shadow, for the past few days. We have been working on learning how this little machine here works and building a larger one. We also perfected the performance of the device to eliminate any mistakes. This device has the ability to 'unpetrify' certain rocks that were once living organisms. Shadow came up to me after obtaining this to ask me to help him improve on the model as well as make a more powerful one. With the larger one we hope to revive a former Titan. But we want the teams approval on it before we go through with it." There was obviously some tension in the air when he had said what their project was. Beast Boy was willing to do anything to get her back, Starfire joined him in that regards, but Robin and Raven were a different story. Terra's betrayal was still a sore spot for the two birds, and they weren't so sure they wanted her back.

"Before you say anything, I want to make certain things clear. If we fail, there will be no hope of returning Terra back to her normal state. She will die if this does not work. These machines work best about fifty-fifty, but with our upgrades we brought that up to about ninety-nine percent. Even though the odds are better, no one has ever attempted to bring back an actual person after being instantly petrified like that. If we fail she will crumble away into nothing. It is your choice." Shadow knew exactly how each of the felt, but he had to give Beast Boy a reason to think the other way, he couldn't have the green shape-shifter hate him for eternity because he had failed in this.

"I think everyone needs some time to think about this. I mean, I know Rae and Rob don't really want her back as much as I do, and I know I don't want to lose her. So I think we need to weigh the options and decide what we're willing to risk on this." Beast Boy's hidden wisdom shown through for that moment in time. True he had seen how the birds reacted to the news and he knew Star wouldn't understand if they didn't try. She was just to naïve to understand the consequences if they failed. He himself wasn't so sure after finding out that he might not be able to see her again, if they didn't try then they didn't fail, and if the didn't fail, then there was still a chance that technology would become advanced enough that they could be 100 positive that it would work. They really did need time to think.

* * *

The rest of the day was spent in quiet contemplation. Every Titan except Star and Shadow went off to some quiet place to think and decide what they were willing to do to either risk the chance of losing Terra, or risk the chance of having her back on the team. Beast Boy had actually gone to the cavern that held her stone body to look at her and decide whether he really wanted her back or not. This decision was hardest on Beast Boy but they had no idea just how hard it was. All he had been able to think about during his idle moments and throughout the battle with Trigon and the other demons was just how badly he wished to have Terra at his side again. But now, now he didn't know if he wanted her bad enough to risk the fragile amount of life she had left because of his selfishness. If only he knew what Terra would want. Was she able to know what was going on in the world around her, or was she sleeping peacefully without a care in the world? What Garfield Logon wouldn't give to know what Terra's, the girl he actually loved, was thinking right now.

Shadow was the one who had originally helped him realize just what he was feeling. It was shortly after Terra had betrayed them and joined Slade. He had been crying in his room one night when Shadow slipped in with his trademark silence to ask him why he felt so miserable. As Beast Boy had explained what he felt he slowly changed the subject to Terra and described what she did to his insides, how she made him so nervous yet at the same time made him feel invincible. How bad it hurt for her to turn against him yet he couldn't bring himself to hate her. After listening to this for about an hour Shadow had finally told him in that creepy voice of his back then that he was in love and that he had no use trying to deny it. Since then it was so much easier for Gar to classify just what he wanted Terra to be, but he was still terrified about what to do if she was revived but didn't feel the same about him.

* * *

Cyborg was going through a scrapbook that Terra had made during her time among the Titans. Terra was actually the one who had gotten everyone to take pictures of everything they did. Cyborg had even installed a camera into his system to make that task easier, but he had really done it because he wanted to help her preserve the memories they had made. She would always ask his opinion about the page she was making and though he had always acted annoyed if there were others present he secretly enjoyed that fact that someone valued his opinion so much. He had actually taken up that job after she had defeated Slade. He had been taking pictures of everything they did, he had made sure to get tons form their journey into Mumbo's hat, He had actually tried to make scrapbooks for when she came back. They were nowhere near as good as hers but they were there so she could learn about what had happened while she was out of it. Cyborg felt that they had this one chance to bring her back and that they should at least try to get her back. But he didn't want BB and Star hating him for failing, he just didn't want to mess this one up.

* * *

Robin was pacing back and forth in his room. He wasn't sure about what to do on this one. He was extremely grateful that BB had told them all to think about it, this was a big decision with some very big consequences. He wanted his team to be happy, but he also couldn't risk having his team betrayed like that again. Terra's betrayal had wounded them all far deeper than they each cared to admit. The only one who probably knew just how had it hurt the team as a whole was Shadow. Why did Shadow decide to do this? Why now? Was he planning on leaving again, so he had now decided to bring the team's ability to fight up another notch? No use going down that road, no one in the world could psycho-analyze his brother, that was one mind that would never been fully understood. Speaking of Shadow, he would have to pull Star away from him so that the poor guy could get some sleep. After coming to his own conclusion Robin left to help his brother. (A/N: I know I didn't say what Robin decided but I plan on leaving that to their vote later that night.)

* * *

Raven was trying to calmly meditate and clear her mind but she couldn't. Terra had betrayed them. She had taken their friendship and used it in an attempt to destroy them. This was an unforgivable thing that didn't deserve forgiveness. But then, why did Raven want her back? Yes, Raven wanted to bring Terra back, and she had somewhat of an idea as to why. She felt guilty, she had recently realized during a talk with Shadow that had somehow gotten to the subject of Terra that she had done almost the exact same thing. They had been talking, and as they lingered on the subject of Terra, Shadow had done something that Raven would always be grateful for. While her voice was filled with bitterness about what Terra had done and how it made her unworthy for forgiveness and life, Shadow had calmly and in an emotionless voice called her a hypocrite. When she heard him say this she had almost torn him apart, how could he call her a hypocrite! She had never betrayed her friends! When she had voiced these obvious facts to him he said to as herself had she really never done anything like that. When she hadn't understood what he meant he had pointed out what she had done on the day of prophesy, She had given in to a far greater evil than Slade, nearly destroyed the whole world, and yet each of her friends had forgiven her for what she had done after she made up for it by saving the world. Couldn't she do the same for Terra, who had joined Slade, taken over the city, but had made up for it by stopping the eruption before it destroyed the city.

After that Raven's view on Terra had changed drastically. She no longer thought that she had been weak to give in, because she had the exact same thing. Yes, when the Titans voted on the subject that night, she would vote to bring Terra back. No one deserved to live as a stone for the rest of their life, and she trusted that Cy and Shadow wouldn't fail. She had been getting better about reading Shadow after living in the same building as him for a few months and thought he had been holding something back while telling them about the plan. He had something to use as a drastic last resort but he wasn't willing to do this unless it came to that. He knew what the outcome of this vote would be.

* * *

Shadow had been trying to ignore Starfire for the past hour. Why did this alien have to be so damn clueless! Why didn't she realize that Terra no matter what happened would not be the same person? This idea of his basically was to revive her life force to the point that her body reverted back to its original form. It had worked in every experiment up until now, but that was just a small piece of hair every time, now to try and revive her completely would be a major challenge. The biggest worry he and Cy had was that they wouldn't have the power to do it, but he hadn't told anyone that Terra would be back no matter what, because he had something to try as a last resort, but the side effects could be drastic and he didn't want to attempt it unless it was a last resort. But he needed sleep before they tried tomorrow but this girl wouldn't stop _screaming _at him.

"**Why are you not going to revive Terra! She needs to come back as soon as possible so we may have life return to normal with the mall of shopping and such! I need another girl to spend my time with, but you are hesitating and not taking the action!" **That was it he had had enough, he would have to apologize to his brother later for breaking his promise about being nice to the alien, but he hadn't had any sleep in the last week and he couldn't get any with her like this. So he pull his hood back and pulled the actual Red X mask back on to make himself more intimidating. Starfire didn't notice any of this as she continued to rant on and on about the completely stupid girl things that Rae wouldn't do with her, so she needed Terra back to do them with her.

"**_SHUT-UP!" _**Starfire immediately became quiet. **_"Listen Tameranian, I have not slept in the past week trying to make this as fool proof as possible! But I need to be fully awake to successfully pull it off, I have to be completely alert of how the systems are operating or else there will be no Terra for you to spend time with. And it seems to me you need to reevaluate your resins for wanting her back. Robin tried to tell me you weren't shallow, but I guess I was right about you, do you even realize that Terra might not survive this!"_** With that shadow yanked his Azerathian cloak off his shoulders so that he was dressed as just Red X and jumped out the window onto a waiting Shadewing.

* * *

As Shadow drove off to some quiet place to get away from everything Star was trying to interpret what he had meant. She wasn't a liquid, so how could she be shallow? She went in search of Robin to see if she could find the meaning of Shadow's mean sounding words.

When Star came walking towards him with a confused look on her face Robin was already planning the stern lecture he would have to give his brother when he got back. But first he had to see what Shadow had called her and explain the meanings in a small way. Star then proceeded to tell him the whole story, being to naïve to know what shallow meant, she also told him what had made Shadow so mad. She told him the exact story word for word, which she would later regret.

"Then friend Shadow told me that I needed to reevaluate why I wanted Terra around. Please what did his words mean? I also wish to know what is so bad about why I want friend Terra back." Star finished her story in her sweet little voice that had always won Robin over before.

"Star, I suggest you get a dictionary for this one because I need to reevaluate my assessment about you. It seems that Shadow is once again a better judge of character than I am." Robin couldn't believe what he had just heard. Star was lucky, if Shadow had been any more sleep deprived and he would have thrown her against the wall and forced the lesson into her, painfully. He slowly walked back into his room leaving a confused Tameranian princess behind to locate a dictionary.

* * *

Shadow returned to the tower after a few hours to find the other Titans sitting patiently waiting for him in the main room, well everyone except Starfire who was at the library trying to locate a dictionary. They looked at him expectantly when he entered the room.

"**_All right, its time to vote. I hope you thought this over carefully an-_**d I hope that we make the right decision." He had pulled off the mask while sying this he looked around at the four faces looking at him. Yes, they had all made the decisions he had been subtly pushing them towards for the past month.

"All right everyone we will go around the room and each say what we have decided, then we will debate the fact until we make a decision. Okay, I'll go first then Robin, Raven, BB, and then shadow. I vote we try." Cyborg said slowly, there he had said his choice, now if only Rob and Rae would see it their way.

"I vote we do it. I don't really want to, but I trust Shadow's judge of character, and he wouldn't be doing all of this if he didn't think she was capable of being reformed." Robin's Choice earlier had been reinforced by Star's story, and he knew she wouldn't have lied about something like that.

"I vote we bring her back, partially because of the same reason as Robin, and I think that Shadow might have something as a last resort to bring her back or else he wouldn't have even brought it up." Raven startled everyone with her answer.

"B-but Raven, I thought you hated her!" BB was astonished, Raven and Robin were willing to forgive Terra, that was the greatest thing he had heard in like, forever.

"No Beast Boy, I don't hate her, but I don't like her either. I just feel she deserves forgiveness."

"Well… uh… okay, I vote we try, I don't think she wants to stay in that rock any longer, and I trust Shadow." Gar was showing a major amount of newfound maturity not bothering Raven about the fact that she was forgiving Terra.

"Well that means that we need to wait for Star's answer and then we can get started." Cyborg was positively beaming, he knew what Star's answer would be and he knew that Shadow would do whatever the others wanted.

"No, we're doing it tonight, and Starfire is to not come any where near me for the next week at least. She has no opinion worth listening to in this matter. And I suggest you all be careful about what you do and say around her, she might just decide you aren't doing enough for her and ditch you." With that Shadow walked into the garage to start loading the equipment into the T-car without explaining his words.

* * *

The Titans were at the cave and completely setup in less than an hour. Now that they had made their decision they worked without hesitation and with an almost feverish pace.

"All right Cy, start it up. We're going to give a friend back her life." Shadow seemed to have completely reenergized him self after he had left the tower. He was now working like he had no other purpose in his life.

After Cy flipped the switch the generators began to hum to life, blue energy filling the room as electricity flowed into the girl's stone form. The others quietly watched as the half-robot and tortured warrior studied the monitors, careful to not miss anything. After this had gone on for about an hour Shadow finally told cy that it had been properly stimulated and that it was time to go the full power. As the energy filled the room Shadow's face grew more and more grim. The girls pulse wasn't returning fast enough, they didn't have enough power, but they were still in the green he might not have to resort to the other choice.

"Yo! Man we don't have the power we're losing her!" worry was edging his voice. The others gasped could they have made a mistake?

"All right, I know something else to do that will help her own powers free her but I don't know what the consequences will be! What ever happens, she will not be the same Terra. Are you all willing for this to happen?" Shadow's voice somehow easily rose above the noise from the machines. Everyone nodded, this girl deserved life, and they had to try everything possible to give it to her before they let themselves fail. Shadow then pulled on his full faced Red X mask to protect his own body from what he was about to do. What ever happened to the young girl he was doing this for, he would be the one the face the most side effects.

Shadow jumped up onto the rock she was standing on, and stood behind her. The electricity flowing into the stone immediately started to rush through him but he used his own body as a conductor for it, but because of the xinothium stored in his suit it changed the blue energy into red xinothium energy that raced through the stone and straight into the girl charging her powers to heights she had never thought possible in her petrified state, more than enough to break out of this stone prison of hers. All of a sudden her screams of pain from the strain joined shadow's as her eyes and hands began to glow with the same color red as the electricity flowing into her body. With a final scream of triumph she shattered the stone encasing her and destroyed all of the machinery surrounding her. Dirt and debris flew into the air covering the scene from the view of the other Titans present.

As they watched in anxious silence they saw the dust slowly settle and they saw two figures slowly getting up. The first one visible above the cloud of dirt was Shadow with all of the X's on his suit still glowing from the amount of xinothium he had just processed through them but what startled the others was that even the one on the skull part of his mask was glowing but they quickly wrote it off as nothing as nothing as they watched him reach down and help the girl to her feet. As Terra walked into the light they all gasped. That must have been one of the side effects.

"Why is everyone looking at me like that? Do I have something on my face?"

"Uh… Terra look in that mirrored surface over there." Raven didn't know what else to say she wasn't good at this kind of thing and decided that Terra had better see it as soon as possible.

Terra on the other hand was absolutely terrified, was she horribly disfigured? Would Beast Boy never want to go on a date with her again because she was no longer pretty? When she looked in the mirror she gasped, she had grown up while in that stupid rock, there was no way Garfield wouldn't want to date her now(little did she know that he was thinking the exact same thing). Then she saw her hair, it was no longer the blonde that she had prized, it was now red, but not just the normal carrot-top, or even Starfire red hair, it was a deep red, a blood red. She passed out because she didn't know what else to do. Cyborg then carried her up to the car. None of the tech was salvageable, so they decided to leave it.

* * *

So… Like it? I hope so. This chapter lays down one of the key items in the future. Sadly this fic may not last much longer than a few chapters, but I'm planning on doing a sequel, that picks up during the time of Batman Beyond. This fic will not have the happy ending I had originally intended. Instead it will have a kind of tragic one that leads up into the sequels storyline. Don't worry for those of you who like Shadow, he's not gonna die, but he will be a darker person who lost all meaning to his life after the ending of this one. Hope ya'll like it. And please review. I want your opinions. 


	11. He's gone?

Disclaimer: I only own Shadow, and the plot. I do not own the Teen Titans, LOTR, of Van Helsing

Hey everyone, I plan on updating as much as possible this weekend to hopefully get as much of the story in as I can before I get loaded down with homework again. I hope you all liked the last one. Hopefully this one will be just as good as I want it to be. Please **Read and Review.** I want to know if you all want me to go ahead and write the sequel. Thanks

Surprisingly, everyone easily adjusted to having Terra around and quickly fell into a new routine that included her. Shadow once again found that they had much more in common than most would think and would spend time talking abou the parts of the world they had seen during their time as wanderers. Beast Boy found this to be especially interesting and would just sit there and become enthralled with their stories of who made the best pie, burger, or just plain best food. Shadow had surprisingly seen even more than she had during his time before aiding the Titans. In fact, he talked about places that Terra had heard about but had never made it to. During their more interesting days the other Titans would come and listen to the stories, it became a kind of tradition to spend at least a half hour after dinner to swap stories about little towns and good traveling experiences.

Usually most of the Titan's days would be spent with BB, Cy, Robin, and Terra playing the RPG they had become so enamored with. In fact, they had become one of the top teams in the online tournaments. A normal tournament consisted of spending about three hours going through dungeons and castles searching for new weapons, armor, and magical items. The last four hours were spent using those items to defeat other teams in battle. The four of them had become one of the top ten teams throughout the country, and today was the national championships. They ate a hearty breakfast before turning on their wireless controllers that stored their characters and they began to play. Right after Breakfast Shadow and Raven had left to, get away from the annoying game in Raven's case, and to just have some alone time in Shadow's.

They easily started to navigate their way through the first dungeon using their characters' unique skills and abilities to get some of the better items. Cyborg's barbarian warrior, which looked a lot like him when he was one, was their power hitter and the guy that moved blocks and other obstacles out of their way. BB's thief was extremely useful for opening chests and pick-pocketing other players for a few more funds, he also was able to slip into the shadows and attack people from behind if they got in the way. Terra's wizard was the healer and magical specialist of the group. She was the one they relied on to attack people from a distance and take out the people with less magical resistance. Robin's swordsman was an extremely specialized character. He had had to pay some major money for that one, but they soon found that it was worth it, because the swordsman was almost impossible to hit and could easily slip through an enemies defenses.

By the time they began to reach the harder levels and better items they found that someone was getting into these dungeons just ahead of them and getting the best stuff! The strangest thing was that whoever they were, they were incredibly picky about what they took, leaving some decent items behind for the four heroes. After about three levels with this almost constant taunting from the mysterious team they rushed through one to try and see what they were dealing with here. Just as their characters passed into the main treasure room of an Egyptian pyramid they finally saw who they were dealing with. Their mouths dropped open when they saw what classes the two people were. One was a high level assassin, which basically, was Robin and Beast Boy's characters combined into an incredibly deadly package. The other was another high-level person, but the class was the one that stunned them the most, she was a sorceress! A sorceress was the ultimate magic user, they had major healing abilities as well as the most powerful dark magic in the game.

The two stopped looting the place and turned to introduce themselves through the game's text message communication system.

RedX-Well what do we have here, looks like it's the second best team in this tournament.

FallenAngel-You know what? I believe your right. Well we would like to introduce you to _the_ best team in this tournament, The Dark Ones, with the infamous Red X, and me the beautiful Fallen Angel.

CytheBarbarian-what makes you think you're the best? We can take you.

RocknRoller-Uh… Cy, no we can't. Didn't you hear what their name was? The Dark Ones, you know the guys that can't be beaten?

GreenSkin-C'mon, the reason they're so good is because they haven't faced us yet.

PheonixBlade-I agree with GS. We can take em.

RedX-sorry to disappoint, but that's gonna have to wait until after lunch, because treasure hunting time is up. See ya later kids.

With that the game system said the play time was suspended and saved. They would have a one hour lunch break and then they got to show those jerks who was the boss.

When the game resumed they began the round by facing off against teams that weren't important at all. After about an hour of this they had a break again while they waited for the semi-finalists to be announced. During their breaktime, they got a call from the boys at Titans East.

"Hey Robin, this is Speedy. You have to hear what just happened to us on the game."

"What Speedy, did you actually get past the first round?" Cy and BB snickered. TE wasn't exactly the best team on this game because they couldn't work together and hadn't picked a team captain, choosing instead to do the democratic thing of voting. Which got them killed during the fights.

"No for your information the others finally picked me to be the captain, and we only just lost on the second round. But I didn't call you guys to tell you that we lost, I called you to tell you who we lost to." Now the others were interested. If the others had gotten into the last round with their four fairly high-leveled characters then anyone who beat them had to be good.

"Who did you lose to? Was it the HIVE?" the four guys in the HIVE five were almost obsessed with this game and were surprisingly decent players at it.

"No, we actually feel honored about losing to these guys. They're supposed to be some of the best, The Dark Ones." Speedy paused for dramatic effect. "Then after they absolutely clobbered us they said to let you guys know their looking forward to the final round. What did you guys do to them? They seem to have a vendetta against you guys."

"I don't know what they want, we just happened to search in the same places as them throughout the game. But they were always ahead of us with well developed taunting tactics." Cy was still bitter about those two and the way they talked in the game, you could almost see their smirks through their virtual counterparts.

"Well dudes what ever you did, prepare to pay for it, because they just slaughtered the HIVE. We'll be watching your match, Good luck." Speedy then hung up leaving the four teens to their own devices. The games announcers were showing a replay of the battle Speedy had been talking about, trying to do a play by play, but the Dark Ones seemed to want this one done with a new record on speed, within a matter of seconds the HIVE had been obliterated. The four teens turned to look at what their next match was, they were going against the Dark Ones in the final match. Then it started.

After breaking the record of longest battle against the Dark Ones the four teens were pissed, because right after that those tow had decided that they would stop playing with their prey, and in a matter of minutes they had easily cut down the three warriors and sent the wizard flying.

"Man, who are those guys! How could any one be that good? It should be impossible!" Beast Boy and the others were fuming amongst them selves about how unfair it was that those two were even allowed to play the game. Just when BB was about to pull out one of his boards that explained his crazy theories when the swooshing of the door was heard. Everyone turned to look and see who had just come in when their jaws dropped. Standing there were Shadow and Raven holding up the controllers for the game, the names imprinted on the casing of the controllers were Red X and Fallen Angel.

"It was YOU!" Cyborg couldn't believe it. This had to have spawned from them saying that Rae was probably bad at video games and that was why she never played.

"Yes Cy it was us. We so just kicked your cans while you were being watched by thousands of people. I believe that I have earned the right to gloat now and punish you for your remarks about my skill level?" Raven's voice was full of taunting and mischief.

* * *

After a few days of rubbing it in to the losers Raven went back to being herself. She had decided that just knowing she had beaten them was enough for those two. But the Titans began to have much bigger problems in the form of recurring emotional backlash. None of the Titans knew that any of the others were also waking up terrified and depressed. But it happened every night to all but one of them. Starfire was beginning to wonder why all of her friends appeared to be so tired and cranky during the day. Every night at exactly the three in the morning though they would find themselves waking up in cold sweats terrifies and angry at nothing in particular, but after about two minutes the emotions would disappear just as fast and they would feel like nothing had happened at all. Beast Boy thought that it might be some nightmare that he could never remember and would have forgotten about it the next day, but he still woke up in the morning tired and drained. Terra had the feeling that it was her guilt at having betrayed all of them haunting her sleep and was terrified that they hadn't forgiven her. She had accepted her fate at having red hair soon after three completely unsuccessful attempts at dyeing it blonde again.

Cyborg was just chalking it up to his Brother Blood problems and how angry he was at the man, who incidentally had just escaped from jail about a week ago. Robin had put it up to his frustration at not being able to track down Slade. Raven however because of her empathy knew it was coming from an outside source and not from her. She had been really worried about the other Titans because their lives were reverting back to the stressful ones of being superheroes. The big supervillains were back on the scene and the seemed to be trying to plan something big. She knew this backlash was coming from one of them, she just didn't know who.

* * *

But Shadow knew who it was that was stressing out all of the Titans. It wasn't Robin, Cyborg, Beast Boy, Terra, Starfire, or Raven. It was him. He had been having nightmares for the past two months. Ever since he had helped defeat Trigon he had been receiving summons that he kept ignoring. It seems that with all of the training he had received from Azar there came some fine print. He was now supposed to become a warrior for good and give up the next fifty years of his life to destroy evil. But he had been refusing the angels' summons because he felt that he had paid his dues. He had helped stopped the apocalypse but apparently that didn't fulfill his unwritten contract. Another part of his contract was that he would never go to heaven because of the sins he would commit to save souls that wouldn't make it if he didn't fight. He had been so eager to find a way to give Raven a life all her own he hadn't realized what he would be giving up.

Because he was refusing he was receiving nightmares as a warning that they would soon force him to answer, but he had decided that he would fight all of heaven if he had to, just to stay with Raven, Robin, and the other Titans. Yet he knew that his very presence was doing more harm than good now because the dreams were so horrid and graphic about what he would do that he lost control of the barriers to his mind and flooded his friends with his emotion. He would have to leave soon before he drove them insane.

* * *

One morning, each of the Titans walked quietly into the main room to have some breakfast. This morning, there was no war over meat or tofu, there was no herbal tea, the only thing that was normal was Starfire insisting that they eat. Yet none of them ate, they were waiting for Shadow to walk in, just to know that he was still here and hadn't done any of the things they had seen in their nightmares the previous night.

Shadow walked in and knew that his time of hiding his own destiny was up. Yes, even though he always said that he didn't believe in destiny he did now. Raven had had more of a chance escaping her father on her own than he did escaping this with all of his friends at his side. He had gotten himself too involved in something far bigger than he had ever wanted to.

Just as he was about to open his mouth to announce his intentions to leave again the alarm went off signaling that Slade had finally made his move. The Titans set aside their own problems for a moment to go out and once again protect the city. Shadow breathed a sigh of relief, he would get one more chance to fight alongside the ones he cared about more than anything. He quickly ran down into the garage and strapped Gurthang to his waist and jumped into Shadewing who had no idea what was happening to everyone.

* * *

They drove to the library that sat above the temple of Scath to find that not only was Slade there, but Brother Blood, the HIVE five, and a few villains that Shadow had humiliated more than once during his time in Gotham, the Joker was the most prominent among these.

"Well Titans, it seems we have finally discovered how to break you." Slade's voice was still cold and calculating, but it had a feeling of sick and twisted joy inside.

"Yes, when Slade boy here discovered how to defeat the mighty Teen Titans I jumped at the chance. Not because I have something against you as a group, but the person we're after today, well he's a much different story. Wouldn't ya say Shadow." Joker's voice still had it's creepily happy sound to it, but it also had a huge amount of malice obviously aimed at the boy he was referring to.

"Listen, I don't know what you guys are planning, but it wont work. Titans Go!" Robin immediately took command as he had so many times before. But before the Titans could attack all of them but Shadow were trapped inside some sort of cage that held them back from the fight.

"Well it looks like it's just you and us now kid. I think that you're smart enough to realize what we're after." Slade was obviously enjoying seeing the other Titans watch helplessly as Shadow went up against Slade, Joker, Br Blood, Poison Ivy, Scarecrow, and Mr. Freeze.

"Well it would appear that way wouldn't it?" Shadow was just standing in a calm position while the villains surrounding him were getting ready for what they had seen the boy do. This was always his trademark tactic back in Gotham, stand there taunting until you had your enemies good an riled, then leap into quick and devastating action. But Slade and Blood who had never seen him fight normal villains like this were falling into his talking trap. The ones who did know about it didn't want to warn them because that would make Shadow move earlier.

The other Titans, with the exception of Robin, watched incredulously as Shadow flaunted what he thought was annoying about each of the villains he was looking at. They were once again amazed at his ability to get under a persons skin just to make fighting them all the easier. Even the villains who knew what he was trying to do found themselves chomping at the bit to get at him.

"Blood… what kind of name is that? I mean, no wonder you're so bent on controlling others to do your will, you probably never had a girlfriend because they all ran away after hearing what your last name was. I mean who would take a guy seriously if his last name is Blood? I know I sure don't." Blood's mouth appeared to be silently chanting 'shut up' over and over again. Cy couldn't help but think why he had never thought of that.

"And you Ivy, do you really think that all guys go gaga over you? Because most men I've talked to just think you're a skank. I mean look at yourself, do you have any respect for yourself dressing like that?" Ivy unconsciously blushed and looked down at her attire, did she really look like a skank?

"Freeze Freeze Freeze… you have got to be one of the _coolest_ guys I know, no seriously you are so _cool_ that the air around to freezes and turns to ice. No wonder you can't find a new girl, they probably get frostbite when they kiss you." Robin winced, Shadow was mad, he had to go for the one thing that drove Freeze up the wall, his wife. Freeze's face had turned a true shade of purple from his contained rage.

"Scarecrow, puhlease, why would anyone put the word 'scare' in your name? Wait, I think I know why, you're one of those people that can be referred to as scaredy cats, because I seem to recall, the last time I saw you I made you pee your pants." The other villains looked at Scarecrow with questioning looks, but he just looked down at the ground in shame.

"Slade, it must be humiliating for someone of your intellectual caliber to be working with a clown, but then again you always were full of surprises. Tell me, are you secretly a clown lover? Do you have a clown come and perform at your birthday parties? What aren't you going to say that you secretly have clown heads on your underwear?" Slade seemed to be absolutely fuming about that obviously ridiculous assumption. This was exactly what Shadow wanted, rage blinded super villains were easier to take down than calm ones.

"Ah… Joker, isn't this just like old times? You, me, standing across from each other? Wait no it isn't, because back then you were trying to stubbornly get the Bat to laugh. Yes that's why you are so fixated on him isn't it. You're going to have to face it, the man doesn't have a sense of humor, not that you're very funny. I mean squirting flowers, electric buzzers, lame, where's the 'A' material? But enough about that, I'm going to ask you something I've always wanted to." Shadow knew he had the other villain's attentions. "Tell me, have you ever danced with a demon in the pale moonlight? Cause I have." With that Shadow jumped into an offensive tactic while the villains were trying to discern any meaning of his question. Shadow immediately headed towards Freeze to get the man's ice gun out of the picture so that he would always have a sure footing.

Shadow practically vanished and reappeared right in front of the man and used one of the X blades on the back of his hand to slash the gun into two pieces. Then he slipped under the taller man's legs and came up behind him making Scarecrow punch Freeze. Then Shadow used the leverage he gained from Freeze's shoulders to jump out of the way of some of Ivy's vines. The vines then grabbed the first thing that had gotten in their way, Freeze trapping him for a moment, but then he started to feel hot and saw that there was a glowing red X on his right shoulder acting as a heater and thawing out his suit. Scarecrow threw one of his fear toxin gas bombs at Shadow who just stood there not even trying to cover up his mouth. It wasn't until then that the Titans had fully registered that he had worn a full-face mask since they had freed Terra. It was just black though, except for the two blank white eyes. They decided that it must be filtering the air before he breathed it in.

Scarecrow didn't notice this though and decided that his toxin must have affected the boy and jumped in to attack, but Shadow had been counting on this and teleported right before the man tackled him. Scarecrow instead of hitting the ground was hit by one of Joker's cards that cut through his mask and let the toxin seep into his lungs. He then began to see nightmares of shadowy creatures and giant bat-like demons. Shadow then jumped towards Ivy and pinned her to her own vines with X's that had electricity flowing through them causing her to loose control of her plants.

Just then Shadow was trapped in a giant energy field. _'So that was what the other three were doing.'_ Shadow had barely thought this when he noticed that he couldn't use the X suit. Every time he tried to teleport or even just extend the blades he found that the suit wasn't responding. "Do you like the HIVE's newest class project? I had them build a generator that could counter the one inside of that glorious suit of yours. It took some time but they finally got it right, and you are now at our mercy, because the field will only allow certain genetic signatures in or out of it. So now you're going to have to fight us without your precious suit." Blood was about to go off ranting about his own genius again when the other two slapped the back of his head. The three of them slowly walked into the dome of energy surrounding Shadow.

"Fine with me, I don't need it to fight, it just comes in handy." Shadow slowly pulled out Gurthang. He could only hope that he didn't kill these guys. Blood ran towards him with his red energy glowing on his hands. They had cut through Cyborg's impressive armor, why not some ancient artifact that the boy would carry around with him at times? Shadow smirked under his mask and hood, this was going to be a little to easy. Blood's downward slash stopped short when it met the slightly flickering edges of the blade. Blood was stunned, he felt through his mind control abilities, a presence inside the sword. It actually had a mind of its own! Then Shadow flipped Blood over and threw him to the ground but was smashed in the stomach by Slade's Bo Staff. Just as he began to recover from that hit he felt the Joker slam his buzzer onto his back. Shadow screamed inpain as Blood slashed across his face, cutting off the mask.

As Shadow rose to his feet to look at the villains the Titans saw a mark kind of like a tattoo on his face. It was a red X just like the one that goes across the right eye on the Red X skull mask! The creepiest thing about it that even the villains hesitated from was the fact that it was glowing red along with his eyes.

"That is it! Did you honestly think that all of the suit xinothium energy came from the ore itself! I was mutated when I revived Terra because of the adverse effects that the Xinothium had on her! Now, I'm gonna rip each of you limb from limb!" Shadow then started to slowly walk towards the villains only to be hit from behind by one of Freeze's ice blasts. As he got up from that the other three villains came in and started to beat the absolute crap out of him. Blood kept slashing the suit he was wearing to pieces, but he never did more than a small cut along the boy's skin. Slade kept pounding him mercilessly with the staff, causing cuts and bruises to appear all over Shadow's body. Joker was having the absolute time of his life. No one ever tried to psycho analyze him. So he was just pressing the buzzer against any open part of Shadow's skin or suit he could get to.

Shadow rolled across the ground and didn't get up this time, all the strength had been drained from his body, he could barely move his mouth. He coughed and blood spurted out. Just as the villains were about to make sure he never rose again the Justice League's Javelin flew overhead and the League members came to aid the Titans. Slade upon seeing this said that there was no way that Shadow would bother them again and that they had done what they were supposed to. So the villains all went their separate ways to celebrate their different ways. But Freeze, Ivy, and Scarecrow weren't very jucky and were caught by Flash and GL. As soon as the Titans were free they ran to try and reach Shadow, but even though the energy field was gone they were stopped by something.

Raven noticed what this energy holding them back was and used her demonic heritage to push her way through. She was fighting off a holy influence to get to the person she loved. Just as she was about to reach him an actual angel appeared in front of her.

"Stand back demon child, this boy made the choice to fight evil for the good influences in the world. He cannot remain here any longer, he must fulfill his term of service." The Angel said in an indifferent tone.

"You mean he actually made that promise? And he never told anyone?" the others present were confused about what was going on, but Raven seemed to know about what the guy was talking about.

"He made the choice to give you life daughter of evil. I don't know why he thought you were worth it. I guess the saying is right among humans, they really can't choose who they fall in live with." The angel was sneering at her. He obviously thought that she should have ended with her father.

Just then a black blade with the pale edges flickering angrily pressed up against the angel's throat. "That's enough Draziel, This girl has done more for the side of good than you ever will. I've given up the fighting-cough-and I will go to the high council, but I never said I wouldn't kill you. So I suggest that you learn to show respect to your betters. She won't demand that you respect her, but that doesn't mean that I can't do that for her." Shadow's voice had a grim edge to it as he pressed the cursed blade up against the angel's windpipe, threatening to finish the job.

"Very well Turumbar, I will wait for you over there. You have only a few moments to say good bye to the thing you hold most precious." The angel seemed to still get a kick out of revealing how Shadow felt about Raven. Shadow slowly turned to Raven and she saw that he was still coughing up blood.

"Was he telling the truth?" Raven was not going to play any games with this. She had to know two things, did he actually love her, and did he really make the oath that made him bound to being a sacred warrior until they held his oath fulfilled. The last one that she could remember hearing about was Gabriel Van Helsing, and he had been the warrior for almost a thousand years before they released him.

"Yes, about both things. I have fallen in love with you, and I did make the oath, but I only thought to stop Trigon then. I thought that stopping the end of the world would be enough, but apparently since I only helped I have to still serve them until they feel that I have fulfilled my oath." Shadow didn't want to beat around the bush either, he was almost eager to get away from it all and may ask for an extension if Raven reacted to his feelings about her in the way that he knew she would.

But she didn't. Instead of slapping him or rejecting him she did something that he had never even let himself dream about. She kissed him. It was just a short kiss but it was enough to send what she felt about him to his brain. "I can't believe that you actually fell in love with me. Because I fell in love with you Shadow, but now when we finally tell each other we're about to be separated again. Just promise me that you'll come back, just promise me that whether I go to heaven or hell that you'll follow when you're done." Raven was actually breaking down in front of everyone she knew. Tears were streaming down her face as she buried her head into Shadow's chest.

"I will, don't worry I will." Shadow then slowly stopped hugging her, which neither of them knew when he had started doing that, and walked back to wear Draziel was waiting for him. After one last look at his friends he disappeared in the pillar of light that surrounded him. Raven then sank to her knees and broke down completely, her tears and sobs choking out the silence that had engulfed the now nighttime sky. The other Titans and Batman just stood there silently grieving for hours until Cyborg and Batman finally decided it was time to go back to the tower.

* * *

The team would stay together for years. Well, everyone except Starfire, who was called back to Tameran after the first year. But when they finally went their separate ways, it was because they had to, the league had deemed them to old to be Titans any more, but let them work together as a 'sub-team' in the league. But after a while they drifted apart and went their separate ways, but stayed in touch with everyone. One subject that was taboo in Raven's presence was that after that day she stopped ageing. She of course noticed this and slowly felt out of place among her friends and took to exploring the world.

Robin became Nightwing and protected Bludhaven. He chose that city because he and Shadow had always talked about going there after the Titans and protecting the citizens of that city. He kept in touch with the others and always hoped to one day have a reunion with all of the original team. Cyborg went back to the tower and now trains the younger generations of Titans. He still enjoys being the big brother figure to younger ones. BB and Terra eventually got married and help Cy train younger heroes. They seem to rather enjoy being more of a handful than any of the teens are. Batman eventually retired and grew distant from all of the batfamily's kids and Tim Drake never got to know the one that Barbara and Richard would not shut up about.

* * *

Shadow walked up to the high council. He was still bleeding from his battle earlier but he wanted to waste no time in getting this over with.

"Blane Grayson, you made a vow one that you will keep. But now we must warn you about something, you are immortal and will never age a day. We will hold your oath fulfilled after fifty years. Your tasks will traverse history itself, because you were a vital part of this world's history before you were even born. Your brother made that suit based on a legend he heard about a patriarchal line of warriors known as the Red X, but in reality, he made the suit that they wore, because each one of those warriors was you. We will send you to the vital points of history you were involved in. Then you must do what you feel is right in those situations. You will be allowed to return to your own timeline when fifty years has passed there. But you will still look seventeen years old when they will be almost fifty."

Shadow walked out of the room with his mind in turmoil. He only had to do this for fifty years instead of the hundreds that it normally took, but he wouldn't age, and his family would. Raven wouldn't want to be with a boy. Being a hero really had taken everything away from him. He hated being the hero, when he got back to his own time he would resurrect Red X not Shadow. He would never help other people again because it had burnt him to many times. Look out world because Shadow really did die in that fight with Slade.

* * *

Gotham was quiet and no one noticed the blinding flash of light in a dark alley. Out of the portal stepped a young boy dressed in the infamous Red X suit that many learned about in history books now. The boy smirked it was time to take Gotham by storm again.

"**_Sorry dad, but I can't be a hero anymore. I'm just going to rile things up a bit and find my place in this new world."_** The teen then began walking around to get his bearings in this new high tech version of Gotham. He would have to find out about the new security systems and how to get past them. But the Red X suit was at least centuries ahead of its time. He could handle anything this new Gotham could throw at him.

* * *

So what do you think? I ended this a little quicker than I had originally intended but I think that it will make the sequel better. I hope you enjoyed this one and I'll explain just what happened to Shadow to change his views on the world in the sequel. I used lines from Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker and a variation of a line from the first Batman movie that the Joker used because the Joker used the actual line on Shadow and Shadow thought it would be funny because he had actually danced with Raven one night a long time before. So he said demon instead of devil. Please Review and I'll try to get the sequel started as soon as possible. Thanks for reading. 


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